The Trythalls

2011-12-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

Do you see this crazy hair? Well, we decided it was time for little Houston bug to get his first hair cut.

At first Houston wouldn't sit still and was trying to climb out of the chair, but after putting on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and giving him a sucker he was happy.

The first haircut was a success! Even though in this picture he doesn't look too great.

Last weekend we went to the Riverwoods to see Santa. At first Houston was smiling and happy as we approached Santa. As soon as Blake went to set him down on Santa's lap Houston freaked out! He started screaming and clinging to Blake. Houston was not too happy with his parents after that.

November

2011-11-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Look at this cutie! Doesn't he look like a little Albert Einstein with his crazy hair?

Where is Houston?

There he is! (This is our favorite game to play. He plays with blankets, hats, and buckets.)

Experiencing snow for the first time, a little scary at first. He wouldn't touch the snow, but he liked walking in it.

Wow, November has been a crazy-busy month for my family. We have been busy with birthdays, school, Masters' programs, and playing with our little guy. I haven't been doing so well with taking pics of our happenings. This is post is mostly just for me to remind myself of what is happening in our life.

Turning 27 is a turning point in my road of life. I have moved from my mid-twenties to my late-twenties. Soon it is going to be the big 3-0 and that is a tad bit alarming. What have I done with my life? Where is my life going? Only time will tell.

Houston is learning and growing all the time. He is LOVING Mickey Mouse right now. We bought him a little Mickey Mouse stuffed animal and he will carry it with him around the house. He also is a little monkey. He loves bananas, he has even figured out where I keep them in the kitchen and he will point and scream until I give him one, even if he isn't hungry. He is also a monkey because of his climbing abilities. He loves to climb all over our couch and he realized that chairs are a great thing to try and climb, which freaks me out. One of my favorite things is putting Houston to bed. That sounds kinda wrong because you would think I would love it when he is awake, which I do, but putting him to bed is such a special time for me. He takes a bath, I read to him, and then he lets me snuggle him for a bit. Houston NEVER sits still so this time is such a special time when I can hold him and tell him how much I love him. The other night we were snuggling and I had to make room for an outsider, Mickey. I realized that this is only the beginning. It will start with Mickey and soon move to no more snuggling and then even a goodnight kiss will be a stretch. It all happens way too fast. Life is busy and I would love to stop time for a moment and just sit and enjoy.

I can't wait for the upcoming season and for my little guy to meet Santa for the first time, see the lights, and enjoy some holiday treats, but maybe I can wait if it means my little Houston will stop growing for awhile...

Scorpion Queen

2011-10-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Houston ready for battle, not really this was his outfit for the party. It just wouldn't be an official post if I didn't slip in a picture of him though!

Creepy, crawly before his demise.

Creepy, crawly after his demise.

Growing up I guess I have always had a connection with scorpions, one of my favorite songs was "Wind of Change" by the Scorpions. My astrological sign is a Scorpio. I loved watching Scorpions and Kangaroo Rats attack each other on the Discovery Channel. However, I never really planned on coming in contact with a scorpion. My plans quickly changed Tuesday evening.

Houston and I had been partying like crazy at the YW Halloween activity. We were all hyped up on sugar and ready to crash. We went through our getting to bed ritual and I was carrying Houston into his room. As we approached his door I noticed something crawling on the ground. At first I assumed it was a big spider. After a second look I realized that was no spider, it was a SCORPION! The little bugger was crawling in Houston's room. For some odd reason my first thought was, "Get a camera no one will ever believe this." I sprinted downstairs and grabbed our camera, with Houston in my arms mind you. I took a couple pics of the creepy thing moving across the ground and then I knew it was time little scorpion dude met his maker. I put Houston in his crib for a front row seat, but he started screaming. This scared the scorpion and it scurried under the crib and hid by the leg of the crib. I honestly didn't know how I was going to kill the scorpion so I called my brother for some advice. He just told me to get something long because if the stinger got me it could do some serious damage. With this in mind I ran in and got Blake's golf club, at first I grabbed the sturdy driver, but after some thought I changed my mind to the 9 iron. I moved quickly into place. With cat like reflexes I jabbed at the scorpion. Of course my first aim was off and the little bugger came out after the club, but quickly I made another jab and made contact. I jabbed several more times just to ensure the death of my opponent. Needless to say I spent the next couple of hours tearing my house apart making sure there weren't anymore friends of this little guy. Poor Houston thought his mother had lost her mind. I am now convinced that he was a loner. Somehow brought into our house. It is the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me, but like one of my students said, "I now have a great story to write!"

Happy Birthday Houston!

2011-09-25T12:02:00.001-07:00

Very angry little boy

Opening his new John Deere trucks

Our pathetic baseball cupcakes

Our sad baseball hat

The bear he loves to snuggle with

Yep, this post is a week overdue. Everyday I think, "After I get everything done I will get on my blog." and everyday I come up short.

Last week my little man became a 1 year old. Time has flown and he is so BIG! He is our little scientist, always wandering around discovering new things he can get into. He just found out how to flush the toilet and so that is his new big thing. Some of his favorite things to do are:

Play at the playground. He has finally mustered up the courage to go down the slide.
Cuddle with his big stuffed bear.
Say, "Da da" all day long and maybe mention a "Ma ma" once in a great while.
Bananas, loves em!
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He adores Mickey.
Going on walks.
Playing hide n' go seek. He is a really good seeker but a terrible hider.
Hanging out with his mom and dad

For his party we made a baseball hat cake and I was reminded why I have never really been into cake decorating because I am terrible at it! We also made some little baseball cupcakes. Next year I am just going to buy some... He had a fun time. He wouldn't open his presents so we had lots of helpers who assisted him. He also freaked out when the cake was placed in front of him. I think he would have been fine but Blake decided Houston was moving a little to slowly by just picking at the cake. Blake stuck Houston's whole hand in the cake and Houston was NOT happy about that.

Houston is such a blessing to Blake and I. We both adore him and cannot wait for our weekends when we can all be together and play. He is such a happy little kid with a huge personality. We love you bug!

Month 10

2011-07-21T12:15:00.001-07:00

Yep, my little man has reached the double digit numbers in months. I think this is a huge accomplishment, for him and for Blake and I. He loves to walk around the house and climb up onto our couch. I get so nervous because he wants to walk on the couch. He doesn't have any fear. Blake and I even considered letting him fall off the couch just to put some fear in him. He doesn't love toys. He likes air vents, bowls, measuring cups, and emptying cupboards out. Houston loves books. He just sits and turns the pages. He is a fun little guy and I love seeing his personality develop more. He squeals in delight a majority of the day. The other day I was watching the news and he started laughing hysterically at the tv. I love his laugh. As far as talking and sleeping he is really not interested in either. He mostly just makes noises. He naps well but still struggles sleeping through the night. We are continually working on it though. :) He is truely a joy in our lives.

This is Houston walking. He started around nine months, mostly just stumbling until he fell over. He does pretty well now. You can see he is also trying to climb up on the couch. He is a mover!

Jackson Hole

2011-07-20T15:00:00.001-07:00

OK so do you see the dark spot in the bushes? Not the lower dark spot that is a shadow but the one in between the the bottom bushes and the leaves maybe? Yeah that is the grizzly bear we saw. I am not making this up. If you don't believe me go to Jody's blog and you will see a better pic.
Old Faithful being as faithful as ever, plus or minus 10 min.

These are some hot pots we went and saw.

The beautiful bison.

The Grand Tetons aren't they grand?

Last weekend Blake, Houston, and I all went to Jackson Hole with our good friends the Kings. We left at 5:30 in the morning. Yes I know, Why so early? Well Houston woke up at 4:30 and was having a hard time going back to sleep, so we just thought, "Why not head up to Jackson and he will fall asleep in the car?" We did just that and he did exactly that. On the way up to Jackson we spotted tons of wildlife. We saw: antelope, deer, and a moose! The moose was ginormous. Sadly we had packed our camera in the back and I didn't think to get it out and take pics of these awesome animals.
On Friday we hung out at the cabin and went to Jackson Hole. We went to this awesomely, terrible shoot-out. There were foreigners taking off their shirts and actors with really bad accents and acting skills. It is always fun to walk around Jackson and enjoy the little shops though. That night we went on a safari and saw more wildlife including a huge heard of buffalo. I think buffalo are the weirdest looking animal next to a giraffe. Maybe not I am sure there are other strange looking animals that I am not thinking of, but they are strange.

On Saturday we went to Yellowstone. On our way we saw a GRIZZLY BEAR with her two cubs (well Jody and Tyler say there were two, Blake and I only saw one). She was probably 20 yards away from our truck. Sadly, by the time I got out the camera and started snapping shots she had stepped behind a bush and you couldn't really see her. :( Go to Jod's blog to see some great shots of her. We entered Yellowstone with high hopes of seeing more wonderful wildlife. We were strongly disappointed in our wildlife selection. We saw lots of elk and that is it! The scenery was beautiful and we were brought to awe with the spouting of "Old Faithful" but there was a little bit of sadness in the vehicles as we left the park.

The rest of the trip was fun including playing an awesome game of "Would You Rather..." Now back to life as we know it.

Capitol Reef

2011-06-30T14:32:00.001-07:00

Houston playing peek-a-boo inside the sleeping bag with his dad
Cool petroglyphs that we hiked to.

Houston trying to play with his cousins

Val, Lindsey, Houston and Blake

This last weekend we went with Blake's family down to Capitol Reef and stayed in a cabin for a couple of days. I had never been to Capitol Reef before but it is a pretty area. Sadly we were not able to go hiking a lot but we did get to see a lot of beautiful rock formations and petroglyphs. Just like any other camping trip we had a lot of laughs, ate too much food, and played games. I think the most memorable part for me was one morning when Audrey, Mallory, Blake, Bob, Houston, and I were the only ones awake. Bob is a little crazy in the mornings and he decided to put on Minnie Mouse's wedding ears and dance around. It was pretty funny. One thing I realized during this trip is how terrible Houston is on overnight trips. He struggles sleeping as I know a lot of kids do. When we got home on Sunday we all crashed Houston went to bed at like 7 and Blake and I fell asleep at around 8. It was all worth it though, being around family is a great blessing.

Rainy Sundays

2011-06-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

I know some of you might have been wondering, "What do the Trythalls do on rainy Sundays?" Well this is what I do

I made some Oreo Cookies. This was my first time making them, I don't understand how people get their cookies small and more puffed up, mine were HUGE but DELICIOUS. While baking cookies this is what Blake and Houston were doing

Blake made an awesome blanket hut for Houston to play in. He LOVED it! He would crawl in and just squeal with delight. I had a really cute video to post with it but I guess it is too many MB and will not post, I am bummed as should you be because it is funny. The only problem with the blanket hut was that Houston was not so sure where he could exit, he kept trying to go one way that just let into a wall which resulted in hitting his head numerous times. He was not phased he just kept romping around in the hut. What a great rainy day!

Superbaby!

2011-06-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

Houston is always exploring things and pulling himself up onto everything. The other night I was folding laundry. He likes to pull all of the clothes out of the basket to "help" me. He then takes the basket over and usually climbs around inside and stuff. Last night he pulled the basket up and then leaned a little too far over and got stuck on top of the basket! It was so funny. Blake and I couldn't stop laughing and the poor little guy was just staring at us like, "hello I am stuck here!" We hurried and snapped a pic and got him off. Parenthood is such a fun time.

Today Houston went for his 9 month check up. He weighs 18 lbs. and is 29 in. He is doing great. He has started to become more daring and is now letting go of the furniture and walking/falling to the next thing to hold onto. He likes to experiment with his voice and makes all sorts of weird noises. He still doesn 't sleep through the night, but is getting better I have high hopes for him...

Tres Anos

2011-06-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've Been married to this cute guy for THREE years today. I could give you many examples about how lucky I am to have married this handsome guy but I won't ramble on for that long. I will say that marrying Blake in the temple for time and eternity was the smartest thing I could ever do. I cannot imagine anyone else putting up with a crazy like me for all eternity. I love you sweetheart!

Summer is HERE!

2011-06-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

I just love this kid!

He loves to bite his lower lip.
Houston loves anything that makes noise. Like the vent. He has to stop here daily to hear the noise.

He loves looking out the window. He can get up on his tiptoes and peak over the edge.

He loves Green Beans!

He loves to chew on EVERYTHING!

Sorry this pic is on here twice I cannot delete it. I have been waiting for this time of year since I was on maternity leave. Not to say I didn't enjoy teaching this year because I did. I had a wonderful class and I will miss them immensely. I just couldn't wait to be home to be with my little man and of course Blake. I will not lie though, as it got closer I began to wonder if I would be able to be home all day and survive. I didn't know Houston's schedule, what would we do all day? After being home a couple of days I will tell you Houston runs the show. We do whatever he wants and he falls asleep after a couple of hours of playing. I think I could get used to this. The other day I took him to the park to swing. He enjoyed it but he enjoyed the wood chips better. I couldn't keep them out of his mouth! He freaked out when we left because he didn't want to part with the wood chips. I am excited to start updating more as well. I am sure I will have some wonderful adventures to blog about while I stay home this summer.

Big Grad

2011-05-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Somehow my pictures got mixed up and I cannot move them now. Anyway, a post wouldn't be a post without mentioning this little guy. He is doing great! He is crawling EVERYWHERE. He is even attempting the stairs which scares me. He has two adorable bottom teeth and I found one coming on the top. His favorite thing right now is to crawl around the basement with Blake and I. He loves when we chase him. I am so excited to be the mother to this little guy. What a major responsibility I now have. Being a mother is so exciting and stressful at the same time. What a wonderful road I am now on!

My hubby graduated with his bachelors in behavioral science this past week. I am so proud of him! He has worked really hard to get to this point, but he is not finished. He will start a masters program (cross my fingers) in the fall. I cannot wait until we are finally both out of school and can have LIVES. It is nice that we are now one step closer to that goal.

Updates! Updates! Updates!

2011-04-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have been terrible at updating our blog. I decided to just put a couple of pics of Houston's big milestones he has made in the last couple of months. He is almost seven months old. He is really small for his age but he make it all up in his energy. I tell Houston everyday that he is nuts because he is. He is a goer! Blake and I enjoy trying to keep up with him, but he wears us out. We are having a lot of fun playing and being a family.

This was a couple of months ago when he tried rice cereal the first time. He wasn't so sure about it, but now he loves it.

Houston has figured out how to pullhimself up in his crib. Let's just say taking naps is a little harder now that he can do this. When he gets himself up he makes this squawking noise that is so LOUD.

Not going to sleep anytime soon! Look at him he is like mimicking me.

Trying to crawl. He goes a little ways and then has to stop and rest.

Pulling himself up

Finally he made it!

Precious Gifts

2011-03-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Just recently a family that lives a few town homes down from us lost their little boy who was four months old. After hearing about this I was so overwhelmed by how quickly these precious gifts from heaven can be taken away. I am so grateful for the time I have had with our little Houston. He lights up my day. I will admit that at night when he wakes up screaming, as he often does, I become frustrated and overwhelmed with what to do with him. After hearing about this families loss I realized how quickly things can change and how important it is to cherish what we have right now. I am grateful for families and for the opportunity we have to be together forever. I know that Christ atoned for not only our sins but for our pains and sorrow as well. I know that we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves. Cherish your precious gifts from heaven. Here is a link to her post about her little "Crue Bug" please read it and you will be inspired as well.
http://cruebug.weebly.com/updates.html

Four Months Already!

2011-01-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

Our little Houston is four months old! He is so much fun. Every morning he wakes up and after I feed him he lays in bed with his dad while I get ready. He enjoys playing in his little gym and looking into his mirror. He tolerates tummy time but still doesn't enjoy it. He likes to sit up and even stand for awhile, with our help of course. What a fun blessing in our lives! Other than that Blake and I are pretty boring right now. We are both just working and enjoying our little boy.
Here is a video of our little Houston bug laughing the best sound in the world!

Christmas Break

2011-01-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

Okay so my pics went in the wrong order, but oh well you can deal with it. Our Christmas break was a great time. I have meant to update my blog almost everyday but I have been so obsessed
playing with Houston I just kept putting it off until the last day. For Christmas Houston didn't get much this year but he seemed grateful for everything he received. He loves his John Deere truck his Grandpa Bob gave him. We give him rides around the house.

Here is a snow globe I snatched from my mom's house because he likes to watch the colors.

The bumbo was a scary experience as you can tell from his expression. He is still skeptical of it.

Here Houston is and his daddy coming down to open presents Christmas morning.

We had Dexter and Whitney over for Christmas Eve dinner. My mom always gets us pj's for Christmas. We all look great rockin' our new pajamas, Dexter was way excited.
All in all it was a great break and I am definitely not ready to go back to work.

Houston and Nikki go DOWN

2010-12-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Houston's bump

Today was the worst day. As a mother you always want the best for your children and you want them to be safe. Well today I let my poor son down. The day started like normal. Houston woke up, ate and was happy. We got ready and headed to church. There was a ton of people at sacrament and so we had to sit in the back in the cultural hall. Houston started getting a little fussy during the passing of sacrament so I got up to take him out. While I was walking out I felt my foot get trapped in something. I tried to shake it loose but to my dismay I became more tangled and began to lose my balance. I started going down and could do nothing to save myself or Houston. I landed and Houston went out of my arms, hit his head, and flipped over. He went stiff as a board. I panicked, grabbed him and ran out. He began crying right away and I was hysterical. I have never felt so terrified in my life. Someone called the paramedics. People came out of the meeting to help. The paramedics arrived and looked at him and said he looked fine. They checked his head, you could see a bump forming, but he was very responsive and even smiled at us. I on the other hand was not in such great shape. I couldn't get control of myself. I just kept picturing him flipping over. After my husband gave me a blessing and we played with Houston for awhile I was convinced he was ok. I have now found out that my foot got tangled in the lady's coat that was sitting in front of us. I don't think I will ever stand up in sacrament again. I am so grateful that Houston is doing fine and for all the people who helped. I love our little Houston bug he is just unlucky that he has to put up with such an accident prone mother.

Thanksgiving/Houston's big day

2010-11-28T16:18:00.000-08:00

Blake's family at the blessing

All the men who participated in the blessing.

My family, this was the best picture available we aren't a very photogenic bunch. :)

Houston ready for his big day

Blake's mini back scratcher

Tom's awesome white elephant gift.

Just an adorable pic of Houston.

This year we went to the Trythalls for Thanksgiving. There was a lot of great food and even better company. We played some games, but mostly just talked and laughed a lot. A tradition with Blake's family is to do a white elephant game. It is kind of a big deal and people really like to find the most oddball things to give. Tom, Blake's oldest brother, usually comes up with the most unique gift. This year Blake got it, it was a picture of him on a pillowcase. It got snagged away pretty quick, but it was really funny. Then Blake got a mini back scratcher which also got snatched pretty quick. Finally, he ended up with an Ephraim shirt which he proudly wears. I am so thankful for family and the opportunity we have to be with them and see them often. We love you guys!

Houston was blessed today. What an awesome experience! It was amazing to listen to Blake and feel the love that our Heavenly Father has for this little spirit. I am so grateful for him and the happiness that he brings to our family.

My LITTLE Houston Bug

2010-11-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Houston's two month appointment. Here are his stats:

Length: 22 inches 20%
Weight: 11.13 40%
HC: 39.5 35%

Yep, he is a little guy with a big personality. He constantly makes Blake and I smile. I felt so bad when they had to give him his shots. When she first stuck him he didn't do anything, but right after he screamed! I made Blake hold him because I couldn't handle it. Now he is conked out in his car seat sleeping peacefully.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I love this guy!

2010-11-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post some pics of my little guy. He is doing really well. He is seven weeks now and just as active as ever. He started to smile at around five weeks and I have been trying to catch his smile and these are some of my attempts. There are also some attitude pics in here because he has plenty of attitude as well.

Big open mouth grin!

This is his attitude pose.

Houston Makes Friends

2010-10-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Above: Four generations

Below: Houson with his new friends. None of them would look at me except Deja!

Four generations

Houston and his little girlfriend Jordyn they are about 2 wks. apart.
Great-grandma bonding with Houston

First off I really struggled putting pics on this post, for some odd reason it wouldn't let me move them. Sorry for the random order of pics!

Last week Houston was able to make a lot of new friends. On Friday we got together with Meggan, Deja, Jody, Lucy, Mandi, and Jordyn. Yes he was smothered with girls. He didn't seem to mind though. It was interesting to watch all of them at their different stages in life. I think back to six years ago when we were living at Snow. How quickly life changes!
Houston also was able to meet his great-grandparents. We went down to Sanpete and had a great time, with family. We always do.
On a sadder note this is my last week with my little Houston. The past six weeks have gone by so quickly. I remember my first week home I thought, "How am i going to do this?" I was so used to go, go, go I felt cut off all of a sudden. I was going nuts. Now I am back at that same question, "How am I going to do this?" I know it will be hard to go back and I know it will get better, but right now it is just hard to think about. I think about all the little moments I am going to miss and it breaks my heart. I love this little guy so much. Here are some things that I love about him
I love his smile. He opens his mouth wide and then gives a big grin. He just started doing this this week.
I love all of his noises he makes especially his grunts.
I love when he is so tired he can't take it anymore and conks out on my shoulder.
I love how he sleeps with one eye slightly open, just like his mama.
I love to see how much he has changes since he was born, he is 10 lbs. now!
I love his little chin, nose, eyes...
I could go on for awhile. I am so happy to have him in my life.

One Month Today!

2010-10-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

One month old!

Two buddies hanging out

He is such a wiggle worm he is always striking different poses, I liked this one.

Can you believe it, my little guy is a month old! When I look back on this month it seems like such a blur. It has been quite a month for the Trythall clan. We have had ups and downs, but we just have counted our blessings and enjoyed our little Houston. He is quite the little man too. He loves his daddy they just cuddle up and watch t.v. together and snuggle in bed and sleep together, mommy is just his source for food. Houston is starting to make other noises besides his wonderful cries. He is starting to coo and squeal. He smiles a lot but I guess they are just accidental smiles, but I still enjoy them. The best is at 4:00 in the morning when he doesn't want to sleep and I am rocking him thinking, "Just go to sleep!" and he looks up at me and smiles. It melts my heart and I forgive him for keeping me awake. I am excited a month has gone by but at the same time I am saddened, I only have two more weeks left of maternity leave. I know it is going to be so hard to leave him, but we will get through it and things will work out for the best.

Big Weekend

2010-10-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Houston and I hanging out at the wedding

See how excited he is? He is three weeks old, it is going by so quickly!

This last weekend was a very eventful one for our family. As some of you might have heard my father got into a four-wheeler accident last Saturday. He broke 8 ribs and has been in the hospital ever since. He is doing a lot better, but it is a slow recovery. I love him so much and I just feel so bad for him. He was unable to make it to my brother's wedding and it was a really emotional time for all of us.
On a happier note it was my brother's wedding and so our new family of three headed down to Sanpete. This was Houston's first real trip and I could tell he was really excited. He did an awesome job the whole weekend. We were so busy trying to help set things up and meeting with people and he would just sleep the whole time or sit quietly. Dexter met Whitney like 8 months ago. Right when I met her I fell in love with her. She is so down to earth and fun to hang out with. She fits right in with our family. I became a little emotional at the church listening to the ceremony and thinking of my little bro getting married, but what a blessing it is that he is building an eternal family of his own. Family is everything and I am so grateful for mine.

Adjustments

2010-10-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

Life at the Trythall home is adjusting nicely. Little Houston doesn't cry through the night anymore. I don't know what changed, but he is a happy little guy now. He sleeps for about three to four hour stretches and eats all the time. He surprises me at how long he can stay awake. He is alert for hours at a time. He is taking in his environment constantly. I just can't wait until he can start showing more emotions. My favorite thing to do is watch him wake up. He has a hard time waking up just like his dad. He has to stretch for quite awhile before he can even begin to open his eyes.
I think the person that mostly needed the adjustment was myself. At times I would feel frustrated when he started getting fussy and crying. I was worrying about myself and how much sleep I was missing out on or how tired I was going to be the next day. One day it hit me, this is not about you, this is about Houston and what he needs. I feel silly getting so wrapped up in myself and my needs. Everyone said having a child would teach me patience and I always thought, "I have a ton of patience I am with thirty 10 year olds all day." This experience has taught me a whole new patience and selfless service. I am glad I have been given this opportunity because I can now see that my life needed some readjusting. I am so excited for what the upcoming weeks may bring and what new insights I will learn while raising Houston, what a blessing!

First Week

2010-09-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

We have now been home for almost a full week and what a week it has been. I look back on the days and they all blur together. We have had many happy moments and many frustrating moments. There have been times when i seriously questioned why I wanted to have a baby. Overall he sleeps really well during the day and usually eats really well during the day, the nights are what plague me. He usually begins his crying spells in the evening. The first night he cried literally all night. Blake and I were both in tears not knowing what to do for him it seemed like we were trying everything. He has had a couple of good nights, but many bad nights. I feel so bad for him, he refuses to eat and just screams. Hopefully things will get better I just don't know where the answers lie.

On a happier note I love to watch him sleep, he has the most amazing faces while he sleeps. Blake and I just stare at him for hours. He has had a couple of amazing poos which we marvel at. I know I sound like everyone else who has had a baby, but I feel he is so adorable. What an amazing blessing.

My labor story

2010-09-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

WOW, that is all I can say. A week has gone by since little Houston was born and I don't even know where it has gone.
On Sept. 18th I started feeling some cramping in the morning. Blake and I decided to take a drive down to Spanish to get some things done and he went over a huge bump. Jokingly I accused him of trying to put me in labor. Well a couple minutes later I realized I was bleeding heavily and my mucus plug had came out. We went home and the cramping was increasing. To make a long story short by six o'clock that night my contractions were five minutes apart. We headed to the hospital and they decided to admit me. I was only dilated to a three so I guess they wanted to speed things up and they gave me pitocin (spelling?) and wholly toledo I almost died my contractions sky rocketed. I was begging for the epidural. At 8 the epidural guy came in and started the whole process. The only time I became angry during the whole pregnancy was when Blake had to ask the epidural guy why he needed to know if I had tattoos on my back. I yelled at Blake because I knew the guy would answer and that would postpone my comfort. After the epidural I felt so better. At ten the doctor came in and I had dilated to a six. He told me he would probably be seeing me again at he guessed around 2:00. My family came in and while we were chatting I kept feeling pressure down there. I swear I could feel him coming out. Finally, at 10:45 I told my family they needed to leave because he was coming. They went out of the room and I called the nurse in. She came in and went to check my dilation and exclaimed, "Oh! I can see his blond hair!" That freaked my out! They had to call the doctor because he wasn't at the hospital anymore. He arrived at about 11:00 and started getting ready. At about 11:15 my feet were in the stirrups and he informed me on my next contraction I needed to push. We waited for a little bit and then he told me to push, he began counting to 10 he got to five and said, "Stop!" and the baby was out. It was such a quick delivery I barely had time to really think about what was going on. They put him in my arms and life for our new family began.

Off to a BAD start

2010-09-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

I am already a terrible mother and little Ziggy isn't even here yet! This is an embarrassing story, but for some reason I feel compelled to share it with all of you. Here goes nothing...
I was sitting in my wonderful teacher's chair typing away getting ready for my last day of school when a ginormous sneeze came out of nowhere. Well the sneeze was not the only fluid flying, a huge gush of "water" came out from the lower portion of my body. There was so much my chair was soaked! I didn't know where this water came from, I panicked, was it my water breaking? I grabbed my purse, wrapped my sweater around my waist, and ran out of the school. My school is close to the hospital so I just thought I would stop by, better safe than sorry right? I went into the labor and delivery part of the hospital and announced to the nurses at the desk that I was unsure if my water broke or if I just peed my pants. I decided I really didn't have any dignity left so why not be open with them? They sent me into a room and I had to put the fabulous buttless robe on. I laid their for what seemed like eternity and Blake finally showed up. The nurses were still missing in action. We waited and finally one came in and hooked me up to a monitor and announced she would be back in a moment. A moment turned out to be another eternity. Finally when she returned she showed me what seemed to be a large q-tip and explained if it turned blue my water broke if not it was a negative. After a moment the q-tip was revealed as yellow as it was when it went in. Yep, I pretty much peed my pants! She tried to make me feel better by explaining that a bubble might have burst that can develop on the amniotic sac, I just smiled and told her I was ok that I peed my pants. During this time she pointed out that I was having some contractions that were pretty strong. I looked at her like she was crazy, I wasn't feeling anything! She had to show me what a contraction is. I am the worst mother ever I cannot tell when I pee my pants and I don't even know what a contraction is! My poor child is doomed, no wonder he is still hiding out.

34 Weeks

2010-08-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

Blake has been on my case now for awhile to update our blog. The problem is that not much has been going on. All of July I was in class all day long. We were able to paint little Ziggy's room though. I am going with a sports theme. Here are a couple of pics and I will take more once we are finished.

Right now I am getting ready for school to start again. As always it is a busy time. I will go back for a month and then hopefully if everything goes as planned Ziggy will make his arrival on Sept. 20th. We all know that things do not happen as planned though so I will keep you updated. I have resisted taking pictures of me being pregnant because I swear it looks like I have swallowed a basketball. I let Blake take a picture of me today and I will humor you with the photo. Life is busy but I am not complaining I enjoy it.

Absences in my Life

2010-07-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Lately I seem to be missing many different things in my life. Some of the things that are missing have been with me my whole life. Most of the absences are short term, but when something has been with you for your whole life you miss their presence.

Minor Absence:

My bellybutton, where has it gone? I look and there is just a small slit. I used to be so proud of my cute, little inny. Some people are plagued with terrible outies for life, not me, mine was dainty and adorable. I know this is just a temporary absence, my biggest fear is that one day it is going to pop out, which will terrify me. Nothing against anyone with an outie, but I just prefer my little inny. I guess I will just have to say ta-ta for now to my little inny.

Major Absence:

My BRAIN! I swear I have lost it and I don't know if it will ever return. I have always been a slight airhead, but lately I am pathetic. Twice not once but TWICE I have turned on the water out in our backyard and left if on all night. Blake will text me the next morning and ask how long the water has been on and all I can say is, "Ooops!" Cooking has been simply mortifying, things that I know how to make by heart I forget major ingredients. Please tell me my brain will return soon.

Something that is not missing is my wonderful little Ziggy. He is making his presence more and more obvious daily. At times I wonder if it is possible to have seizures while in the womb because there are some moments when there is utter craziness. Life is going well I am currently taking my final classes for my Masters and so it is a little busy. We have finished painting the nursery and are now just getting it set up. When we get things cleaned up I will post some pics I promise.

Fishlake

2010-06-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Our "rescuers"

Our tent with two visitors.

This past weekend we went with the Trythalls to camp at Fishlake. As always we had many adventures and lots of laughs. Sadly, I didn't take many pics. Blake and I drove down Friday and forgot to look at the directions Debbie had sent on the campsite we were staying at so we ended up driving through all of the campsites and seeing the wonderful views. We finally drove up on our campsite and set everything up. That night we slept in a tent with an air mattress. During the night anytime Blake moved I would touch the ground but then go back up with the air. What I found out in the morning was that our air mattress was pretty much flat and Blake was on the ground the whole night. He didn't mind and I slept really well.
On Saturday Bob rented a boat for us to go fishing on. I have grown up fishing, but my dad had always set everything up for me so on Thursday before we went down I went to Manti and my dad taught me everything there was to know about fishing, I was pumped to go on Saturday. So Saturday morning a group of us headed out to the boat. The marina guy showed us our boat and bragged about how easily it started up, it didn't start up right away, which should have been our first clue that this was a bad boat. We missed the clue though and once it started we were off. Jim was the captain and drove out to the middle of the lake. We made it about 100 yards and the engine died. We tried and tried but the boat would not start and stay going. Poor Cody, Tom and Jill's boy, started to panic because he thought we would be stuck out there forever. We explained that if worse came to worse we would drift to the shore and jump off. Another boat came by and we asked the guy if he would go and get the marina people to help us. I watched him drive up there and tell the people, I thought for sure help was coming our way. Nope! We sat and waited and drifted further and further away. Nobody was coming to save us and our worse situation that we painted to Cody earlier began looking more realistic. We got closer to the shore and Captain Jim offered to save the crew and jump in. He took one big leap and landed waist deep in COLD water. He sprinted it to the shore and took off running to the marina. Right at this moment we looked toward the marina and here comes marina people out to a boat. They were FINALLY coming out to rescue us. They came up to us and threw us a rope. I said, "Thanks for the help." They responded with, "Oh we have been watching you guys for awhile." WHAT? They have been watching us for awhile? I was perturbed. They towed us back and we switched boats. By the time we got out and put our poles in the wind was blowing hard and my heart was no longer in it. We fished for awhile and headed in. The rest of the day we hung out and relaxed. One of my most favorite moments was when we were sitting around the campfire and started playing the question game. I am not going to go into deep detail, but Bob was hilarious as he would try to come up with questions. The next morning we went to church, cleaned up, and headed home. Overall the trip was great and we all enjoyed spending time with each other. Nothing is better than hanging out with family and have a good time.

Mover and a Shaker

2010-06-13T17:16:00.001-07:00

26 Wks.
I decided that I needed to write more about my pregnancy so far. As you may know the beginning was a little bit rough for me. There was a time when I wondered if throwing up would just become a daily routine. Since then my close relationship I was beginning to feel with the toilet has been cut off. I am 26 wks. along and feeling quite well. At around 18 wks. I started feeling little movements and of course wondered if it was my little Ziggy or what was going on down there. Now I am completely aware of little Ziggy and all of his movements. I believe my little Ziggy might be an acrobat. At first I thought it was really cute and fun to feel him twirling around and such, now I don't know if it is as cute as it used to be. He seems to become super active at night when I am trying to fall asleep. I hope this is not a sign of what is to come when he enters this world. I am also wondering if there is something in his small little world down there that he likes to grab and twist. There are moments when I swear he is twisting around and taking my insides with him. Nevertheless, I love his movements, they bring me comfort. At times he focuses on one point and pokes or kicks that point over and over and so I poke back, I like this game. I know I (hopefully) still have a lot longer in this pregnancy, but I am glad I can finally enjoy it and bond with my little Ziggster.

San Fran

2010-06-09T17:33:00.001-07:00

This post is a little late in being published and I am giving you a warning this is very wordy mostly because I want to remember these things so if you want to just enjoy the pics that is fine. Blake and I went to San Fran last week. We drove down Wed. and drove back Sun. It was a long drive, but we enjoyed it even though I think my rear-end is flattened.We stayed with Blake's Uncle and Aunt Wed.
The next morning we went to San Fran for the day. We walked down by Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf. I think the highlight of this day was watching a man hide behind a bush and jump out at people. Why anyone would do this, I don't know, but it provided great entertainment for us. There was mostly a lot of walking this day and looking at sights.
Thursday night we stayed with a different Aunt and Uncle of Blake's. It was so fun to stay with family I kind of got a peek of where Blake comes from.
Friday we decided to drive down the coast a bit to Monterey. When I was little I went to an aquarium with my aunt and I wanted to go see this aquarium again. We went in and I loved all the sea animals! The little otters were adorable. We even saw a whole bunch of dolphins jumping and playing out in the ocean that the aquarium is by. Sadly when we went back to the car to continue driving down Highway 1 we found that my car's battery had died. So instead of seeing a wonderful coast I was able to watch people walk by and look at me like, "Oh how sad." After an hour we were able to find a place to call and they came and helped us jump the battery. We needed to head back quickly for the A's game. Another downfall to this day was driving back to Oakland and hitting rush hour traffic. Blake and I are definitely not made for rush hour traffic. We were going nuts. After the grueling time in the car we made it to the game. We were able to get great seats. I was excited because I like Mauer on the Twins. I love baseball games mostly because there are so many unique people there. For instance the person that was sitting next to us I believe never stopped talking and he knew every stat for every player. It makes you wonder what he does in his spare time. After the game we checked into our hotel.
Saturday was the day that I had been looking forward to forever. We had Wicked tickets! The tickets were for the Matinee. The show was in the Orpheum which is an awesome architectural building. I loved the show. It was funny, dramatic, and intriguing. I have always had a secret obsession with the Wizard of Oz and I feel that this just ups that obsession. I was happy that Blake even enjoyed the show. That night we just hung out in Concord and the next day we made the long voyage home. It was a great trip!

These are pics of Muir Woods which is kind of a spoof off the Redwood Forest. It was a beautiful place with amazing Redwood trees.

These are pics of San Fran, Fisherman's Wharf and the bottom one is Lombard street which is that super zig-zaggy street.

Monterey Bay and the aquarium, I took more pics but I decided you didn't need to see all of them.

The A's Game

Outside the theater. We couldn't take pictures inside though.

Ziggy-our little man

2010-05-05T16:42:00.001-07:00

Sorry the pics are a little blurry our scanner wasn't working so I had to take them with the camera. There is the proof. Ziggy is a little boy! He definitely let us know many times. Takes after his dad, not modest at all.

Look at that cute little profile. I think he has my nose.

Cute little foot and leg.

Isn't it crazy that such a little thing becomes a person? Blows my mind! I am happy we know what we are having and everything looks healthy. Blake is really excited it is a boy, he secretly wanted one.

Graduation

2010-05-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went down to Cedar City to graduate for my Masters. It was a great experience. Senator Bennett talked, his speech was all about looking forward even through hard times he went through history and gave examples of when people in America faced perilous times and overcame them. I found this very insperational and enjoyable.

This was right before we walked down for graduation

Me with my new hood on. Great addtion to teh already horendous outfit.

My grandma and grandpa. I lived with them in the summers to save money while going to school for my bachelors. I adore them both.

Mandi and I went through all of school together.
Without her I would have probably lost my mind many times.

The whole family. I don't know why my father had to ruin this picture!

All-in-all it was a great weekend. Great to be done, almost. I really will finish in the summer. On Wednesday we find out if we are having a girl or a boy so stay posted!

Weekend At Home

2010-04-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

Blake and I headed down to Ephraim on Friday. I enjoy going home and hanging out with family. That night we watched Where the Red Fern Grows the original one with the Trythalls. What a classic movie, it was fantastic. I even got a little teary-eyed at the end. The next day we headed over to Manti and hung out with my fam. That night after eating a delicous meal of steak we decided to go walking aroung Palisade Lake. I love Palisades what a great place, duck lice and all. On the way Blake started taking pics he is trying to convice me that we need a really nice camera. I told him if he started talking more pics we could get one so here are his pics, I think he did pretty good.

Me totally excited to go out to Palisades. My dad walking ahead of all of us. I guess he thought we were all walking too slow.

Me and my cute Daddy-O

There were actually quite a few of us who went on this little treck from left to right front row: My dad making a weird face and my mom second row: Brandon Wilkinson, Mark (I don't know why he is with us, long story, and why did he have to sit by me? Where is my husband, oh taking the picture WHERE MARK SHOULD HAVE BEEN, yes I have some aggravation against this boy.) Me, Dexter, Dexter's girlfriend Whitney

I like this picture of my dad.

There's my husband! What is my father doing?

Las Vegas

2010-04-05T08:13:00.001-07:00

We spent the weekend down in Las Vegas for Val's baby, Lindsey's baby blessing. Sadly of course my camera's battery died! I got the camera out to capture some precious moments and got one silly picture and it went out.

It was a very quick trip. We left Saturday morning all packed into the 15 passenger van that Bob rented. In the front seat was Bob and Debbie, second seat Blake and Nikki, Third Jim, Lisa, and Luke, Last and farthest back Val, Audrey, and Lindsey. The drive down went pretty quick. Val felt a little neglected in the back so she had to start throwing tootsie roll wrappers up to the front which was great entertainment for Luke. Every time a wrapper hit Blake, Luke would giggle and giggle.

We stayed at the Red Rock hotel which was so nice. Sadly no pics. There was a t.v. over the bathtub! We went over to Val's in laws and had a wonderful Easter Egg Hunt. We gorged ourselves at a buffet that night. Afterwards Blake and I ran over to the Marshalls and shopped around. I started feeling nauseated so we left. We got down to an empty parking lot and I had to get out. A word to the wise do not get sick when it is windy outside, lets just say stuff was flying! I came to get back in the truck and Blake got sick thinking of me getting sick and also sent things flying in the parking lot. I thought that was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. I don't know if he is going to be able to handle this whole pregnancy thing.

On Sunday we went to Val's and Chris' to bless the baby. It was a neat thing to do it in the house, very personal and nice. After we had lunch at the in laws and headed back home. The ride home was long because between Cody and I having to go to the bathroom there was a lot of stops. We finally made it to Provo by 10:00. All-in-all Easter weekend was fun and packed with laughs.

Heartbeat

2010-03-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

On Friday Blake and I went and heard our little Ziggy's heartbeat. What a fun experience and nerve wracking! The doctor pulled out his little machine and started rubbing it around on my tummy. I expected finding the heartbeat would be a quick process but this wasn't. The doctor just kept reassuring me that he was sure it was around here somewhere. He found a heartbeat, but it was mine. Mine was slow it sounded like this: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum (read that part slowly). Finally I heard da-duh, da-duh, da-duh, da-duh (read this part really quickly). It was so awesome hearing the two right next to one another. It made me feel united with little Ziggy. I took a breath of relief and the only thing that came to my mind and then I said it out loud was, "I have a little hummingbird inside me!" I don't know why would I say such a ridiculous comment at such a momentous moment, but it is me and I am ridiculous at times. I know I have been blogging a lot about little Ziggy, but really that is the only thing that is really going on in my life right now. I could tell you about fourth graders smearing frosting on their faces or about Blake working, but those are just humdrum things. Life is going well for the Trythall family.

My Little Apple

2010-03-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

No I am not going to name my child Apple like some crazy people do (Gwenyth Paltrow). That is just the size my little Ziggy is now. Ziggy is a little nickname Blake and I have given the growing baby. The name came around because Blake, in a child development class, awhile ago learned the word zygote. When we found out we were pregnant he kept calling the baby a zygote. We decided to shorten this and it went to Ziggy.

Thank you so much for all of your well wishes! I am feeling a lot better thanks to Unisom and B6. So far it is working well and I am able to make it through the day without running to the bathroom.

Guess what?

2010-03-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

I didn't take a pic of the real test so I thought this could suffice.

Well I have been postponing this announcement for awhile, but people are starting to ask so I decided that I probably better post this.
I am pregnant!
This was very surprising to Blake and I, but we are both very excited. I am about 11 weeks along. I have been sick, but things are going well. I will keep you updated the further along I get! If you have any advice on sickness please leave a comment I am up for anything!

Lazy Days

2010-02-21T11:04:00.001-08:00

I looked at my last post and thought, "Jeez it has been awhile!" The sad thing is that Blake and I have not been up to much. I am almost finished with my last Master's class this semester and then I will take my final classes in July and be DONE! I am going to be so happy when I finish these classes. It has been worthwhile, but at times a little stressful. Most of our life right now revolves around school. I cannot wait until we are finished with this period in our lives and can move on to more exciting times. I am not saying that I do not enjoy this time with Blake because I do, but I am just burnt out I guess.
Without Blake here helping me along this journey I have taken to get my Masters I think I would have crumbled. Blake is so good to make me laugh when I become stressed out. I don't know how he can consistantly be so happy but he just is. I promise more exciting posts to come.

Lost

2010-01-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

I became lost a moment ago peering into other people's lives.

I feel strange.

I have never become so enthralled by reading about other people that I do not know or have never met.

There are so many amazing people in this world. Do you ever feel at times that everyone else is making this huge impact and you are just floating somewhere in mediocreville?

I do.

This isn't a pity me post, just a moment of self-reflection.

Cooking Connoisseur

2010-01-18T10:35:00.000-08:00

Clever alliteration eh?
Some people wind down after a stressful day by exercising others might do crafty things. I enjoy winding my days down with cooking. My father was the cook in my family, he claimed that the secret to his great recipes is that he cooks with love. I have internalized this thought and my love for cooking grows with each new dish. Every week I try to find a new recipe to make. While coming up with my new concoctions Blake might become a little nervous because at times the experiments may not look very appetizing. For example Blake told me he loves the Italian Sausage soup at Olive Garden. Through some investigation I found the recipe and made it. Sadly, my soup was a little mushy, but tasty nonetheless. Blake is great to always at least try my experiments. This past weekend I found a recipe for Cafe Rio Chicken and rice. I became very excited because I love Cafe Rio. Blake was very nervous for this experiment because the water I was simmering for the rice was very green from the cilantro. Fortunately, the recipe turned out delicious! I will post the recipe below for the rice and the chicken. I hope you will try it and enjoy the dish as much as we did.
Cafe Rio Chicken
1 small bottle Kraft Zesty Italian Dressini
1T Chili Powder
1T Cumin
3 CLoves of Carlic (minced)
5 lbs of Chicken Breast
Cook all of this together in a slowcooker for 4 hrs. Shred meat and cook for an additional hour.
For just two I halfed this recipe and it still lasted for three days.
Cafe Rio Rice
1 Chicken bullion cube
4 t Garlic (minced)
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 can green chilis
3/4 t. salt
1 T. butter
1/2 chopped onion
3 C. rice (I used Minute Rice)
Blend green chilis, cilantro, and onions together in food processor. Bring water to a boil and add ingredients. Simmer covered for 30 minutes. Add the rice and follow box directions.
Blake and I put shredded cheese on a small tortilla, rice, chicken and a little bit more cheese with a tortilla on top and baked them until they were warm. De-lish! You could also mash up tortilla chips and make a taco salad out of it. So many possibilities...

Dependence

2010-01-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

To be dependent means to rely on someone or something for help or support. I never thought I would be dependent.
Surprisingly, I find myself solely dependent.
I used to laugh at my friends who were married and couldn't sleep by themselves when their husbands left. I thought they were ridiculous. I am now one of them.
Is it a bad thing, I don't think so, I am in love.

The past week and a half has been pure bliss. Blake and I have been together everyday for a considerable amount of time. There have been moments where we have been doing nothing, but that nothingness was filled with complete happiness. We have not done anything magnificent over the break. Our break has included laughing, playing games, watching too much t.v., enjoying movies, and eating too much, which I am sure you probably can identify with at least on of these activities. Now as the week is winding down Blake has become sick. He has been asleep for an hour now. I am sitting here by myself on a Friday night alone. Lonely. There it is my dependence.

Marvelous Day

2009-12-23T16:25:00.000-08:00

I cannot even begin to explain how much I enjoy Christmas break. For instance, this morning Blake and I slept in until 9:00. We woke up and watched a rousing episode of The Price is Right. Went to Blake's favorite store, Cal-Ranch. I enjoy going to Cal-Ranch also, definitely not for the same reasons as Blake. Blake walks into this store and talks about how much he loves the smell and can stand in front of a displayof reins for over 15 min. While I enjoy watching the classic people walking around. Men with handlebar mustaches, women with pants that go up past their bellybuttons. Classic.
Afterwards, we went shopping at Wal-Mart. It was so busy! I swear Wal-Mart makes people ornery. I asked a lady if corn syrup was the same as Karo syrup and she looked at me like I was stupid and said, "Yeah," very curtly and walked away. Maybe it was a dumb question but at least smile at me and say, "Yes," nicely.
We came home and made treats for neighbors. Yummy sweet Chex mix. It was so delicious we just kept on picking at it as we made it. I also had to make a cake for Jim because it is his birthday tomorrow and Lisa, Luke, and Jim are coming down tonight to celebrate. By 4:00 Blake and I were exhausted and crashing from sugar highs. Isn't that what Christmas time is about though? Eating as much sugar as possible.
I am so happy for the opportunity that Blake and I have to spend quality time together like this. I know it will not always be this way. Kids will come, Blake will probably find a job that requires him to work more, and life will just be busier. As for now it is nice to pause for a minute and enjoy the Christmas spirit together. I hope you are able to stop for a moment and enjoy your time with your family. Merry Christmas!

Sexted (past tense of sexting?)

2009-12-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

On Friday I was happily enjoying an ending of another week. I was cleaning up my classroom and thinking of the upcoming weekend which would involve Christmas shopping with my mother and hanging out with my hubby. My phone vibrated and it said I had a video/pic message. I didn't recognize the number which I thought was strange. I opened up the message and guess what I saw... A picture of a male's unmentionables. At first I thought, "What is that?" and then realization came to me and I wanted to scream. I let Blake know what happened and he was so angry I think He was ready to kill the individual. A friend of mine that I teach with was at the school still and she told me to take the picture to the police because at the high school where her husband works this happens and usually the kids who send the picture get charges against them. I quickly cleaned the rest of my classroom and headed out.
Blake and I headed to the Springville Police department. I explained what happened to a police officer who told me he would call the individual and speak with him. He didn't really know what to do because the specialist on this topic was not available at that time, he would talk with him on Monday. I agreed to that and left.
Later that night I received a telephone call from the officer. He explained to me that the individual apologized profusely and "accidentally" sent the picture to me. He meant to send it to his neighbor. I didn't know what to say. In my head I was thinking,"He is lying how do you accidentally send a picture like that? If you are sending a text message you go to your contact list and pick someone from your list. You never type in a number." He explained that the male was in the dark and couldn't see the numbers. "What kind of phone does this person have? How dark was it at 3:30 in the afternoon?" The police officer explained that it was an accident and that was that. I said, "Thanks," and hung up.
I was angry at myself for going to the police I should have let Blake call the individual I think he would have done much more damage. Maybe this person did "accidentally" dial in my number, but still who does that? It scares me to think about the things what people are doing with technology and how perverted people can be. I think there should be more laws agains this kind of thing. Isn't that like indecent exposure or something? Just thought I would share this little incident because I was really bothered by it.

Just Thinking...

2009-12-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

I finally decided to hang some wall decorations on my wall. I am so lame, we have lived in our place for five months and I am just barely hanging things up. I don't know if I am afraid to hang things up or I am just lazy. It is probably a combination of the two. Life lately is going well. I have finished up my classes this semester and it feels so nice. When I look back on the past couple of months I think of homework. That is pretty sad. Now that I am finished I feel almost lost on how to fill my time. I find myself staring off into the abiss and daydreaming a lot.
Some things I am looking forward to:
.5 (Yes that says point five, I thought of a new one and didn't want to erase all of my list) Blake coming home tonight.
1. Sleeping in on Saturday.
2. Finishing my book "Christmas Jars" by Jason F. Wright a great inspirational novel during the Christmas season.
3. Going shopping for Chirstmas presents.
4. The last day of school before Christmas break.
5. Christmas Eve just me and Blake together
6. Sleeping out by the Christmas tree with Blake, you should try it!
I will stop there. I love this time of the year. This is a time when I really feel magic in the air and I am talking about the kind of magic that you hear about in Harry Potter. The real kind.

Adventures in Babysitting

2009-11-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. When I was younger and supposed to be babysitting I refused to do so. I hated children. Yep, you heard me I hated them! They annoyed me and I didn't like all of the noises they made. I can remember sitting in church and telling my mother that I hated children and I was never going to have any.

I began changing my mind about kids when I got a job helping out at Manti Elementary. I helped out at an after school program and I realized how adorable and funny kids were. I remember when I told my mom that I was going to be a teacher she about died!

I tell you all of this because I feel that I probably missed out on important learning moments in my teenage years. Here is another confession, I have changed maybe like three diapers in my lifetime. I know, I am doomed as a mother. Luckily, I have been able to observe many new mothers and hopefully I will be able to figure things out when it is my turn. Not for a long time, but someday.

So last night Blake and I were able to babysit Mr. Luke. We were both very apprehensive because both of us have weak stomachs and Lisa said that Luke hadn't gone all day. When Lisa and Jim left Blake began building a blanket hut. Luke adored the hut. We all climbed around inside of hit. He was giggling the whole time! After about a half hour of this Blake and I both sat around exhausted. Luke was still crawling around in the blanket hut as excited as when we started. We played in that blanket hut for about an hour straight. It was great fun. Lucky enough for us, Luke was able to contain himself the whole time!

Luke first entering the amazing hut

He was really pumped!

I think Blake enjoyed the hut just as much as Luke did.

In November

2009-11-08T19:40:00.000-08:00

I was reading a book by Cynthia Rylant titled "In November" I was setting this writing activity up for my class where they will write about things that they love in November. I decided to do this little writing assignment for myself.

In November
Birthdays are in the air. Of course mine is the first in the long line of family and friend's birthdays. I will give a shout out to all of you now! For my birthday Blake came down to my classroom and brought cupcakes for my kids. My parents came up and took me out to dinner because Blake had to work. Everytime my mom called me or I called her that day she sang happy birthday to me. I love that woman so much. She is always so happy and trying to make the most of life. On Saturday we went up to Jim's and had a celebration for all of the Trythall birthdays that consist of me, Blake, Lisa, Tom, and Trever. We sang happy birthday continuously for every person, it was pretty amazing.

In November
I feel the crunch of leaves underneath my feet. When I was going to school I used to deliberately (with Mandi) walk along sidewalks that had a lot of leaves to make sure every footstep would bring that satisfying "CRUNCH".

In November
I am reminded of things that I am thankful for. I am so thankful for my husband and family. I am thankful for the gospel and the peace it brings to me. I am thankful for the men and women who serve our country and their wonderful brave examples. Finally, I am thankful for all of my wonderful friends like you!

Pippy

2009-10-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

This week has been a crazy week. I have had parent conferences and Master's classes and so on... Last night I came home and I started thinking about my halloween costume. I knew I couldn't wear my Jessie outfit without Blake because nobody would know who I was. Of course I could just be a cowgirl, that would be way too simple. Blake and I started to look on the internet at different ideas for redheads. We found a picture of Pippy Longstocking and I have always wanted to do my hair like that so I jumped on the idea of dressing as Pippy. I watched a little how-to video on getting your hair like Pippy and I knew that I was set for the next morning.

The next morning came and guess whose alarm didn't go off! I woke up late and so I was rushing around trying to get ready. I got all my makeup on and everything was going well until I started working on my hair. That is when everything crashed down. The girl on the how-to video was a dirty liar! I could not get the hanger into my hair. I was becoming more and more frustrated. Finally, I called for Blake's help. My wonderful husband got out of bed to help me. He held the hanger while I tried to do a braid around it. Nothing was working. My hypoglycemia was kicking in because I hadn't had any breakfast yet and I began shaking which made things more worse. I think Blake began feeling pity for me so he offered to braid my hair for me. With a little teamwork we were able to finally finish. After the whole ordeal I think being a cowgirl would've been just fine.

Don't you love the crooked braids, classic.

Duped by D.I.

2009-10-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Blake and I have been trying so hard to find things for our Halloween costumes. We decided last week that we should go check out D.I. to find some shirts that we needed for our costumes. By the way we are going to be Woody and Jessie from Toy Story. As we wandered around D.I. it became more apparent that we might struggle with this quest to find the perfect shirts. Finally, after scrounging through many different shirts I found one that I believed looked like a good "Jessie" shirt. I thought it was a little large, but it was as close as I was going to get. We then moseyed on over to the men's section to find a shirt for Blake. On a side note, I could sit and watch the different people at D.I. all day. There was a lady walking around with three Chiuaua puppies in her cart, one missing its leg. There was a boy running around in flame tights. I mean where do these people come from? Anyway, we made our way to the men's section and began picking out the perfect shirt for Woody. We looked and looked and nothing ever pleased either of us. At last we just chose one. Blake was a little worried that it looked kind of small, but it would work. We purchased the shirts and then headed home. A week later we decided maybe we should try these shirts on. Last night we put our shirts on. Blake put his shirt on and as he began buttoning it up he started to panic. The buttons were on the wrong side. He ripped his shirt off and his manly Woody shirt turned to be more womanly! We had picked out a woman's shirt! I persuaded Blake to wear it anyway. It was a little small, but still fit. I put my shirt on and Blake couldn't stop laughing because it was so large. Kiddingly he said, "What if your shirt is actually a man's shirt!" He came over to check the tag and it was! How did I pick out a man's shirt and Blake got a woman's shirt? After laughing about the incident for awhile we decided we are still going to rock our mixed gender shirts. Touche' D.I. Touche'

Deep thoughts...

2009-10-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

I really do not have any deep thoughts I just have thoughts, what really makes a thought deep? I love the fall. I love the crisp air, the leaves, and chili soup. When it begins to get cold I automatically start thinking about chili from Wendy's, I swear it is the best stuff in the world. Yes, I have heard disgusting stories about how they make it, but guess what? I don't care I like the taste and so until it makes me ill I am going to enjoy my Wendy's chili.
It is fall break. Boy am I excited! Blake and I have been trying to decide what we wanted to do. When it came down to it we decided to just hang out and maybe go shopping one day. I look forward to shopping it has been FOREVER since I have been.
Here is the difference between Blake and I. I am sitting here blogging and Blake is looking at saddles. Do we have a horse? No? Does he need a new saddle for his horse in Ephraim? No. He just looks at saddles on KSL all the time. How did I end up with a cowboy? If you could call Blake a cowboy. Now he just asked if he should buy a hot pink saddle blanket, where does he come from? I love this cowboy though. He is so happy looking at his saddles right now. Life is good for us right now. Very busy but going well. I know, I know I need to post pictures of our place, but I have still have not hung anything up. I am hoping to do that this week.

Wow!

2009-09-27T08:24:00.001-07:00

Life in our new place is going well. Sadly to say I have not even hung one picture up on the wall. It is pretty pathetic. Life has been a little busy. I am getting my Masters this year and I swear I only do homework and that is it. It is going well though. It will only take a year to get my Masters and then it will be over! This is a picture of our first mortgage payment. Pretty exciting day!
Here's the fam on Sept. 9th when Dexter came home. That is such an exciting day. I think waiting at the escalators for a missionary or really anyone to come down is going to be like heaven. It was so fun to be finally reunited together again. My mother was the first one to see Dexter and she let out this high, shrill, "There he is, it's him!" And then I don't think she stopped screaming the high, shrill noise just kept on continuing. Dexter, alerted by the familiar shrill noise looked down and saw us. He then began running down the escalator barreling over anyone who got in his way. My mom, on the other hand, was running up the same escalator. It was a pretty funny sight. All the other families just waited at the bottom nicely like they were supposed to. Dexter is home now and enjoying life. He is working hard. It is great to have my bro back home!

This pic was right after Dexter came down the escalator.

This was us waiting, look how excited my mother is. :)

My Brother!

2009-09-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Guess who is almost here, my adorable little bro! I can't believe how time has flown since he has left. When he left I was in my first year, first month of teaching. I am now in my third year and working towards a Masters. I was Miss Rowley when he left and now I am Mrs. Trythall. My father was not interested in the church and really didn't like missionaries to now he actually goes to church at least once a month and is trying to read the Book Of Mormon. You always hear about the blessings that you will experience when a member of your family goes on a mission and Dexter and I was always told that when Dexter went on a mission my father would become more interested in the church. I had my doubts, but sure enough here we are two years later and I have seen this promise happen. Sure my father still expresses much doubt and questions many things, but I can see a change in him. I don't know where things are going to go from here, but I do know that missionary work is real and what a blessing it has been for Dexter to go out on a mission. I now look forward to hearing stories and sharing stories. I look forward to seeing him coming down that escalator and having The Chubs Family back together. (that is what Dexter would call us) Other than Dexter coming home life at the Trythall's home is quiet and busy.

M-O-V-I-N-G

2009-08-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

I know most of you have had the lovely experience of moving at least once in your life. Isn't it just terrible? I hate having to round up boxes and trying to fit every last thing you own into one of those boxes. Plus boxes are square. There are many things that I own that are not square and do not fit nicely into a box so I end up only being able to put a small number of things into one box because they don't fit right, annoying. Annoying that is what moving is, annoying. What else is annoying is when you have to be out of your apartment by July 30th and you haven't even closed on your home yet. Yep, you are left homeless! Luckily for Blake and I we were invited by our wonderful friends to go to Jackson Hole so we were provided a home for three nights. Nice timing.

You want to know another annoying thing? Buying a home. I know it is a huge step and I am still wondering if we did the right thing by buying instead of renting, but we did it. The most annoying thing about buying is the wait. All of the wonderful leagal shananagans are just ridiculous. Also the place we bought was being rented before. Those renters of course didn't have a checkout or anything and so I am pretty sure they decided just to wipe things off and be on their way. Do not do that people! Nobody wants to clean up after you especially after they just finished cleaning their place. My mother had to clean all of the carpets, and I had to spend all day Monday cleaning with my helpful mother-in-law Debbie. Needless to say there is still much to be done.

I know I sound like I am complaining. Maybe I am a little. I am so grateful to be in a place of our own and to have stairs. Yes stairs. Two levels are amazing. I am no longer in a rectanglular box. Well I guess I am still, but you know what I mean. It is so nice to walk up stairs and have stuff and go down and have other stuff instead of just having one long hallway, in our case a short hallway. Sure we didn't have internet for awhile, we secretly moved in without being fully closed, and our hot water has been turned off for three days and will hopefully be turned on tonight, (I am sick of taking washcloth baths), but we are living somewhere and it is nice. We are all moved in thanks to help from many friends and family and finally unpacked. I am now looking forward to decorating and will post pics as soon as it is finished. I can now call Springville our new home for awhile.

George Strait King of Country

2009-07-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

On Friday we were able to go to the George Strait concert. Now as some of you know in high school I never listened to country. I hated country. Growing up my dad and I always rocked out to Aerosmith or ACDC ( I know we are hard core) so when I started dating Blake I had to accept some of his choices of music. After a couple of years I can now say that I love country, I still love my big hair bands, but country has grown on me. George Strait is one of those singers that I have come to really enjoy. When we found of that Bob was able to get some tickets we were really excited to go. This was actually Blake's first concert he has ever been to.
Here is the fam listening to Julianne Huff. Julianne and Blake Shelton opened up for George they both were really good.

Cute couples!

Sure we were on the grass so this is the closest picture I could get but it was still way fun! I love the atmosphere of concerts everyone is having a good time.

Random pics

2009-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to the zoo. Blake and I decided that the lion fountain was a must to take of picture of. Blake was supposed to put his head in the mouth but he became a little shy when approaching the lion. Who wouldn't it has been around for decades and decades I swear.
Here is a pic of grandpa Bob with his grandchildren. They all loved the zoo. The funny thing was that this was Blake's first time going to the zoo with his parents.

These monkeys were so cute. They had their arms around each, adorable!

This summer we have played in a summer softball league. We had a lot of fun meeting new people and playing hard! Jim played third base and when a ball came up and popped him right in the eye he had a sweet bruise! Brave Jim played the rest of that game and the game after.

This is Jim at third and Blake at short stop, cute little ball players.

Blake always hit right before me and in this picture he just hit a home run, go Blake go!

Here is a picture of some of our teammates who were great people to play with. We are going to miss seeing them every Friday night!

Mystery Dot

2009-07-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Mystery Dot underneath my left eye. (sorry it is so dark I had to take it with my phone)

Well first of all I have so many more important posts to post about but my usb or whatever it is called that I transfer my pictures to my computer with is no longer working so I will have to figure something out to get my pics on the computer. Until then I am going to tell you about my mystery dot on my face. As some of you may remember ever since I was little I had a little red dot under my left eye. I believe this dot appeared when one day in second grade I was swinging on the swings and as I swung up a bee and I collided. Of course the bee stung me right underneath my left eye. Well I swear that is when the red mark appeared, my mother says it isn't but I really think I am right. I grew attached to the little red mark. I felt it gave my face character kind of like Cindy Crawford's mole. When I got into Snow College one day I looked very closely at my little red dot and it had a white head on it. I popped my little red dot! Was my little red dot the longest running zit ever? It seemed to be gone. The other day I looked into the mirror and guess who was back, yes my little red dot! I have no idea where it came from! Last time it lasted at least ten years we will see how long this zit reigns on my face.

Fourth of July Weekend

2009-07-09T10:54:00.001-07:00

On the fourth Blake and I woke up at 6 to go run my first 5K run. I have started running quite a bit but Blake hasn't so much. He knew I was a little apprehensive of going by myself in the morning so he was such a good husband and went with me. My parents showed up to cheer us on. It was nice to see them there even though it is just a silly race. My parents were always to everything I did when I was younger and they still are there now. They even drove around to different spots where we would pass to keep us going. When I first saw them I will admit I became a little choked up. I love them so much!! Blake and I both finished together, I wanted to hold hands across the finish line but Blake was against that. I am proud of finishing and I hope to run more races in the future. We made an appearance at the park and I was so disappointed because I missed my EGG TOSS! I adore the egg toss and when we got to the park they had already tossed thee eggs. We just wandered a little and then Blake and I headed home.

These pictures are all out of order and I can't fix it! Oh well, on the fourth we went over to Meggan's and Kades' because they live right next to the stadium. We realized that we could see a lot better if we were on the roof so up we went. I couldn't believe how well we could see the fireworks and even the big screen so I didn't miss my Jonas Brothers! Just playin' I really had no idea wha tthey sang.
This is a pic of when the helicopters flew over.

We started lighting fireworks off in the back of Kade's house. As you can see the grass is a little dry so Tyler took it upon himself to be the firefighter, Go Tyler!

On Friday July 3rd we took Jim's boat out to the Res. At firs Audrey was terrified but I think after awhile she was enjoying herself.

The water was freezing and disgusting but we jumped in for a second.

Even little Luke got in for a dip!

This is Lisa and Luke enjoying the ride.

Audrey and I enjoying ourselves.

Stinkin' Audrey

2009-07-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night Val, Kris, and Audrey came to visit us. Val and Kris are going on a cruise so Blake was going to take them to the airport and then we were going to take their daughter, Audrey, down to Ephraim to stay with her grandpa and grandma. When Audrey woke up her parents were gone, but she was ready for the day! Blake kept trying to get her to go back to sleep and she just kept saying, "But I am awake!" We realized at that time it was going to be a long day. Audrey is very independent. She told us what she wanted for breakfast and when Blake changed her diaper she even told him that he did it wrong, it was too tight! Finally, we were on the road down to Ephraim. On the way down Audrey was happily chatting the entire time. After Santaquin though there came a pause and in a little whiny voice Audrey informed Blake and I that she needed her mother. When asked why she told us that she had gone potty. Now Blake and I can handle the see through liquid in a diaper, but the other unmentionable product is an entirely different story. Now I need to admit something, I have only changed like two diapers in my life and in those diapers there have only been a liquid substance, gasp, I know I just never babysat little kids who had diapers and the opportunity hasn't arrived. Blake has changed his nephew's diapers, sadly though when Trever had an unmentionable accident Blake just left the diaper on him until Tom and Jill came home and a severe rash followed. So as you can see we were not going to be able to handle the answer to the next question that Blake asked. He asked, "Did you poop?" Audrey quickly answered, "Yes," and then exclaimed, "Stinkin' Audrey!" Blake and I couldn't stop laughing we totally agreed with her. After she repeated "Stinkin' Audrey" a couple of times she then started in with "Stinkin' Rico" Who Rico is we have no idea, Val where does this come from? Well we pulled over in Nephi and Blake informed me that I was going to have to change the diaper because he would begin to gag. Carefully I laid Audrey down onto the seat and removed the diaper. I soon was delighted to find that there was no unmentionable! Audrey was teasing us the entire time. Much relieved I changed a liquid diaper and we hit the road again. We arrived without another incident. It was a fun experience and I am glad we were able to spend some quality time with our niece.

This is a video of Audrey singing, "How Does She Know" from the movie Enchanted. If you get sick of listening to the how does she know make sure you fast forward to the 44 second mark where Audrey answers some questions.

Journals

2009-06-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

What is a journal for, to put down your inner most thoughts and feelings or to give a recall on what has happened to you lately? Well I started going through my old journal that I started in 2004 and went up to 2008 when I was engaged to Blake. I was going through some of the entries and I began to get angry with myself at some of the things I was saying or doing. I became so frusterated with what I had written in some of the places that I threw my journal away! I began wondering why would I ever write these things, what if my children found these and questioned me? I let the journal sit there for probably 20 minutes until I reevaluated my reason for journaling. At that time those were the important thoughts on my mind. I should never throw away or discard those thoughts they were once very relevant to my life. I am sad to say that I have not been journaling in a journal I have been writing on this blog, which I felt, substituted for a journal. Going over my blog I have realized that there are bits and pieces of my inner most feelings, but for the most part it is just a recall of events that have happened to me in the past year. I love blogging but I have realized the importance of writing down my feelings and thoughts on things that I feel are personal, too personal to put on a blog. Maybe nobody will ever read the journals because I am too self-conscious about other's acceptance, but I am going to work on journaling again. I feel that it is important that we are honest to ourself and we write down our thoughts and feelings often. I will still blog and it will be a recall of what I am doing, but I will write in a journal often also. I don't know why I felt that I needed to post this other than that it is a way for me to remind myself of the importance of this. Hopefully you will all consider writing more not just to let everyone know what is going on, but just for yourself, to treasure your thoughts.

Random Stuff

2009-06-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to update for awhile and so these pics are kind of a collage of what I have been meaning to update with and just haven't. This first pic is from the bbq we had with Jim and Lisa yesterday. This is Little Luke, he is such a happy kid and so fun to play with.

Blake and Luke just chillin' waiting for the food to finish cooking. Jim made us grilled chicken and it was delicious!

This is Luke's dinner. Lisa is starting him on rice and I think he spit more up than anythig else.

Here is a pic of Friday night before the storm settled in. We had a double header softball game on Friday night and we were just watching this storm moving toward us. We won our first game and we were only able to play the first inning of our second. We did score one run and there were two peopl on with me up to bat when finally the ump called it. The rain was coming down in sheets and I was so soaked! I was a little bummed they called the game because we were already wet, why not just play it out?

Jim, Lisa and Luke before our second game.

Yay for the pageant! Of course we had to go and experience the pageant his year. We took some of our friends from the ward (Kendra and Ryan Oaks) down to experience it with us. We were able to give them a good time with turkey dinners and giving them the grand tour of Manti.

Love the temple

Rowley Reunion

2009-06-23T10:00:00.001-07:00

The Cabin
One of the Demon Moths we killed

Puffer Lake

Daddy the Fisherman

Fisherman Blake

This last weekend we were able to go down to Beaver Mountain and stay in a cabin by the old Elk Meadows. My grandma and grandpa have been planning this trip for over a year. I have always heard how pretty that mountain was and I must say it is gorgeous! There are so many green trees and wildlife. I couldn't believe how many deer, elk, and rabbits we saw. Blake and I left with my parents on Friday morning. My dad found some walkie-talkies which was important so that we could communicate the entire trip. Blake and I were Rubber Duck and Big Red, my mom and dad were Mama Mia and Chubs. When we arrived my grandpa was there to greet us waving us in. We got out and went into the cabin to find a little lady leading my grandma around giving the grand tour. She was a little O.C. about things, but she meant well. She made sure that we knew not to go out of any doors that had curtains on them and all of the rugs were nailed down to ensure their stay at the cabin. All of the families arrived within an hour of us and we staked out our claims on what rooms we would be staying in. Quickly Blake and I realized that there was not enough rooms to have our own room so we got to stay with my parents! Ah, it wasn't that bad except that my dad couldn't sleep and I woke up with him sitting on his bed just staring.

We headed up to Puffer Lake later that day to do some fishing, my father is determined to make Blake into a mountain man. Sadly Blake has not fished since he was like eight so there is a lot of teaching to do. Blake did pretty good. He didn't catch any but he became a great caster. The only person to catch a fish was my dad who ended up catching like six. He loves fishing and it is so cute because once he hooks one he calls any little kid who is around to help him reel it in. That night we ate dinner and just chatted with family. When we went to bed we saw this HUGE moth flying around. My dad started teasing my mom that it was going to land on her face during the night, right when he said this it landed on his face. We all started screaming and swatting at it. It would disappear for awhile and then reappear flying everywhere. Finally Blake was able to catch it. He went into the bathroom and was in there for quite awhile. We all thought the moth had taken Blake and put him into the toilet. When Blake came out he told us that the Demon Moth, that is what we named it, was thrown into the toilet and when the toilet was flushed Blake opened up the lid to find the Demon Moth flying up at him. After much of a struggle Blake was able to dispose of the moth. We all got settled back down when my mother screamed saying there were more moths on the wall, sure enough we looked and there were three more Demon Moths. My mom and Blake jumped up and tried to catch them. My mother ended up killing one on the wall and Blake was able to destroy the other two. Eventually we were able to sleep.

That morning we were awoken by the little ones who were hungry for breakfast and we were in charge. The morning looked a little bleak with all of the clouds, but my hopes were high to go fishing and have Blake catch one. After breakfast we set out for another shot at Puffer Lake. I even wore my camo shirt to give us luck. My dad felt confident in Blake and even let him tie his own line and everything. Blake decided he needed a drink so he went to grab one at the truck. While he was gone his pole got a bite. We started reeling it in and right when the fish got almost to the bank the tie came loose and the fish was gone. I knew Blake was going to be so sad about that so we decided to tell him it was just bad line. Other than that experience our fishing adventure for that day was pretty unsuccessful. The rest of the day we played Bingo and golf and went for a drive because it was too rainy to do much outside. On Sunday we got up, cleaned the cabin, and headed home.

It was so much fun being with everyone. I absolutely love all my cousins. The interesting thing is that we all live very different lives, but whenever we get together we all have fun and our differences do not matter. I just love family!

Day in the Rain

2009-06-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

Bridal Veil Falls

Luke's protective bubble in the rain.

The family before the storm.

On Saturday we were graced with the presence of Bob and Debbie so of course we had to do something exciting! After much debating it was decided (by Bob) to walk up to Bridal Veil Falls. I believe he was inspired to make the hike because of Blake and I's previous adventure or because he wanted to relive the time when he and Debbie took their engagements up there both special experiences. Jim, Lisa, Luke, Debbie, Bob, Blake and I headed up to the falls. It is such a nice hike and we definitely were enjoying ourselves. The farther we got the more it started to look like rain and eventually the heavens let loose and it all poured down! None of us were much bothered by the rain though especially little Luke who was protected by a plastic bubble. we headed back and ended our day with a lovely feast of Kentucky Fried Chicken! It is so nice to have family so near to us. Family is such a great blessing in our lives!

I also don't know what it up with my posts lately but it will not allow me to move my pictures so they are always at the first and I am really annoyed by this...

One Year!

2009-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Blake using his Indiana Jones Whip

Manly Blake

Celebrating our year mark!

Yep, we have been married for one year now. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. We have been recapping all day on what we were doing at certain times and all those memories seem like they happened just the other day. It has been a wonderful year. To celebrate our year mark we went shopping for a purse for me. :)
Blake had already gotten his present earlier. Guess what he wanted, a bull whip! Like straight from Indiana Jones bull whip. Sometimes I wonder who I married. He has been talking about getting a bull whip since he came home from his mission and they were on sale at Cal-Ranch and so to make my little Indiana happy we went and got one for him. He actually is pretty impressive with the whole thing. It scares me.
Anyway, back to how we celebrated... We went to Ruby River which is absolutely delicious! They were really nice, they gave us a dessert for our anniversary. After we went to the movie Angels & Demons. This movie was pretty good. I read the book forever ago and I thought it followed the book fairly well. It was a fun evening. Really we just love being together.
Our real anniversary is today, but you can only do so much on a Sunday you know. I am just so grateful to have such a wonderful husband who keeps me sane and helps me laugh when I am feeling down. What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to marry our best friends and be with them forever. I look forward to many more wonderful years together!

Do You Have a Visual?

2009-06-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday evening Blake and I decided to go for a little walk up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls. We started at like 7:15 let's say, not 7:20, definitely 7:15. We both love going on walks up there because it is a pretty walk and gets us out of our apartment. We went up just past the falls with nothing really exciting happening. We saw a couple of long boarders almost eat it, I silently cheered. I could go on about long boarding on trails and how sometimes I want to throw a stick into the tires to make them crash because they drive me nuts, but I will refrain from that thought.
We were going back down the trail when we saw a man in a dress shirt running up the trail that you can take to walk up to the top of Bridal Veil. We both thought this was strange so we stopped to look at where he was going. While watching a woman asked us if she could use our phone because her daughter had just been hit by a rock that had started rolling down the hill. It turns out the man in the dress shirt was her husband. Of course we said yes. She dialed one of the kid's number that was up on the mountain and asked if the daughter was ok. She talked for a second and then got off the phone. She was panicking and asked her daughter who was with her if her phone was in the car. The daughter said, "Yes." The woman then asked Blake and I if we would stay at that spot and wait until they came back, this was at 8:15. We watched her and her daughter walk off down the road and waited. I was feeling quite important at this point. We waited, and waited, There was no sign of this woman or her daughter coming back and the people on the mountain were not moving down either. Blake and I began to wonder if we needed to go find the woman or what. We started walking down the path when a police car and Search and Rescue pulled up. They came running out of their vehicles and over to the falls. Blake and I walked back to our station and realized that the officers had no idea where the people were, they were just looking up the mountain. Finally I said, "Are you looking for the hurt girl?" The man said, "Yes, do you have a visual?" "A visual?" I thought but responded with a quick, "Yes." The man then yelled to his partner, "These people have a visual and went running off." The officer came over and said, "You have a visual?" Blake and I really enjoyed this technical term they were using with us and now we use this term quite often with anything in our apt. I am sure it will get old soon but for now it is enjoyable, try using it in a sentence today. We were able to help them locate the people on the hill. Blake and I went back to our truck and watched the team go up the mountain. Finally at 9:15 we saw the daughter who had gone with the mother to get the phone. She came over and thanked us for our help with everything and said that her sister could feel her feet and legs, but it was hard for her to move and things were "tingling". When asked where they had gone she told us her mother was nervous and so they took their dogs home and she stayed home. I thought that was very strange, but it seemed like things were going to work out for the better so we headed home. We were just happy we could serve the good people of Provo Ut.

A Night of Spontaneity

2009-05-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

Long time no hear from right? Well I have been really busy and honestly not many exciting things have been going on in our lives. Well something wild, crazy, and out of the ordinary happened last night, Blake and I actually made it out of Provo and didn't head South! Anytime we go anywhere it is usually down to Manti and Ephraim to see the fam, not last night...
Yesterday my wonderful husband came and visited me while my kids were away to piano. We started chatting and decided we needed to get out and go do something. Of course we never decided exactly what and I half expected that I would just head home and because neither one of us can ever make up our minds we would probably just go out and eat somewhere new and return to watch ESPN, the only channel our television seems to have.
When I arrived home we began our same discussion we always have when contemplating our options for an evening, it goes something like this, "Where do you want to go?" "I don't care." "Well, where is someplace we haven't been for awhile?" "I don't know maybe we could go to a movie or something." "I want to do something fun and get out." "So do I, I really just don't care what we do." "Let's just drive around and maybe something will pop out at us." This is when we usually get into the truck and head out, later realizing that nothing is "popping out" at us and we just stop somewhere and call that good. I didn't put who says what by the comments because the roles fluctuate between Blake and I.
Last night was different because some epiphany came to Blake and I and we decided we would head up North. After more brainstorming we became even crazier and decided we would go to Park City. I know we are wild. I have been telling Blake about my favorite Mexican food place called "The Baja Cantina" so we decided we would go there.
First, we drove around a bit and found Blake's grandfather's house that he built. I love the houses in Park City. I think they are so neat and I secretly imagine myself living in them. I imagine myself sitting in one of the front rooms looking out the window at the pine trees and aspen trees all around me. I could go on with my silly imaginations but I won't. His grandfather's house from what I could see was a very nice house and that will be the house I will use for my imaginings from now on. From there we went to the Baja Cantina and had a delicious meal. If you ever go to Park City you need to find this place, I adore it. It has the best chips and salsa and pretty much the best meal for a pretty respectable price. I like the TJ Taxi the best.
Afterwards we decided to head to the outlets for some window shopping. Blake and I first headed into Aeropostale or Aeropostatle as Blake kept calling it and Blake found a button up shirt that was five dollars. He was nervous because he didn't believe that shirt was actually five dollars so he made me go and buy it. To his surprise it was actually five dollars! When we left my sixth shopping sense told me to go into Banana Republic. We went in and my heart began to beat faster. I was finding all the clothes I Needed for summer. Luckily I was able to bridal my passions and I jut found a very cute sensible green top. The real show stopper was that Blake found himself some jeans that he actually liked! We have been looking high and low for jeans pretty much our whole married life and we finally found some that Blake felt "comfortable" in. I knew we had to buy them.
Finally, we decided we needed to head home because I still had to work in the morning. We took a quick main and headed home.
I know for many of you out there you will be circling your index finger thinking, "Whoop Dee Doo." It was a fun evening though and I just wanted to write about it because I finally felt like there was something to write about.

Yucky weevil

2009-04-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Blake and I were enjoying a lovely Sunday afternoon. We had both taken short naps, went visiting and home teaching, and went on a nice walk. It was looking to be a fantastic day. After the walk I decided to make some snickerdoodles. I got everything out to prepare for the making of these cookies. I poured out the sugar and noticed some strange object in there. I grabbed it with my fingers and it moved! I screamed and dropped it. Blake came over and put it in the garbage. I opened up the flour and there were three in the flour. I panicked, I am a clean freak and I just couldn't imagine this happening to me not in my clean kitchen... I have now learned that I must always keep my flour and sugar in sealed containers. The little object in my hand and in the flour is what we like to call a weevil. I went to get a pic on google and the little animal is so gross I decided not to post a pic. We are both so disapointed that there will be no warm snickerdoodles to be eaten. Life's lessons to be learned sometimes are hard to take, especially when it messes with food.

Spring Break

2009-04-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sweet IFA hat, huh?

Oh I love Spring Break. I feel so renewed after. I seriously was dragging before and now I feel like I could spend another month with these kids. No more a month is good, just kidding I love them. On Wed. I was able to clean our huge apt. ha ha, it took me about four hours to really deep clean our humble abode. It is nice to feel like things are in place. Thursday night is when Blake and I headed down to Cedar. We ran into a freak snowstorm through Millard County. Finally we arrived at about 10:30. That morning we woke up to my grandma cooking bacon and eggs, Oh I love my grandma. We chatted with the grandparents for awhile and finally decided to head to Zion around 10:30.
We arrived at just about 11:30 and after returning to the truck three times to get things we forgot we finally were able to get on the shuttle and onto the trail. I had been on Angels Landing before but Blake has never been so we decided to try that one out. I will admit something, I started to exercise awhile before because I didn't want to be totally embarrassed by having to stop every switchback to take a breather. It was a good thing I had started to workout more because it is a buff hike. Don't worry there was a couple of people who were sprinting up the hill by us, I just shrug those freaks off though, I mean seriously if you can sprint up that you are a little crazy.
The whole way I had to comment on the rock formations (curse of a fourth grade teacher). It is so gorgeous down there. We slowly made our climb higher and higher. Finally we reached the top. This is the tricky part of Angel's Landing the part that you think is the top really isn't. I showed Blake where we were going to have to clime out to and he about died, "Clear out there, are you crazy?" I started wondering if I was because it was pretty windy and all you have to hold onto is a chain. We started our ascension gripping the chain tight. I was looking around and down, far down into the canyon. Blake's eyes were constantly forward. We got to the second part that levels off right before the last little chained part, and probably the most dangerous part. We sat for a second and then decided our lives were worth more than climbing out onto a narrow death strip. We feel that we made it and we can proudly say we hiked Angel's landing.
We hiked down enjoying the easiness of the task after the long hike up. After I drug Blake into the souvenier shop (anther curse of a fourth grade teacher). We had a picnic on our truck bed and then headed to Mesquite.
We arrived in Mesquite and got our keys from my grandparents who work so hard down there so we can get free rooms. :) We walked up to our room and it was a suite! It was probably bigger than our apartment. We were pumped. That night we went to dinner with my grandparents who were participating in a slot tournament that weekend. After we washed Blake's truck, headed to Wal-Mart and bought the essentials, ice cream, Dr. Pepper, and four silver spoons, the essentials. I fell asleep pretty quick that night.
The next day one of my closest friends Stacy came down from St. George and joined Blake and I outside by the pool. Blake, Stacy, and I are pretty white and were feeling a little self-conscious next to the leathery skinned sixty years old. We found a place in the far corner that looked safest and put our towels down. It was so nice to lay in the warmth and relax. After awhile it wasn't so nice and we deicided to stick our little toesies into the water and it was freezing cold! Blake got in and Stacy and I just put our legs in. Later that day after some rest in the apartment we headed to St. George to go shopping and eat at In-N-Out, Blake had been talking about eating there forever. We wen with Stace and her husband Jared and then rented Slumdog Millionaire and watched it at Jared and Stacy's apt. What a great movie! I want to lear how to dance Bollywood style.
We stayed in Cedar that night and then headed home on Sunday morning. I was getting more and more depressed the closer we got to Provo. I really didn't want to come back to the real world and back to my responsibilities. After being back in the real world for two days I am doing okay. I still wish I was laying by a pool...

Before we started, Blake is pumped.

Lovely view from almost the top

The wonderful switchbacks
Me and my hott blue outfit.

Stacy and I chillin' by the pool

Us goofing around in our room.

Easter Weekend

2009-04-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

I am so excited for my spring break. I have been waiting so long. I am also so excited Mr. Bob Barker just appeared on the Price is Right stage. He is my hero. I absolutely adore Bob. It was always my dream to see him in real life and that never happened. Maybe I will buy the Bob Barker book that he just published...

Sorry for the side note. What I really wanted to write about is my Easter weekend, I know it is a little late. The choir kids performed on Friday and Saturday. It was so much fun to see them finally perform the dances that I have taught them. They were so excited and proud when it was finished. I am surprised at how much I enjoyed it. This whole time I have kinda complained about the time that it is taking and how the kids are just not getting it, but tears came to my eyes as they performed. Maybe I am just a little softy but it was neat seeing the final product.

My parents came up to watch on Saturday and then we went to our favorite restaurant in Springville, La Casita. It is the dirtiest little place. We have been eating there since I think I was probably 8 or 9. My dad always orders #17 and we just enjoy the cheese and grease.

The next day Blake and I headed down to Manti to meet up with my parents and my grandma and grandpa. We watched the Masters all day. I love watching golf so it wasn't bad. I was very disappointed in Phil though, he had the win and then just let it go. It was fun to see my grandma and grandpa. My grandma told a dirty joke, if she didn't it just wouldn't be the same. I don't know where she gets these dirty jokes. I wanted to cover Blake's ears. I lived with my grandma and grandpa down in Cedar for awhile and I sure do miss them. They are such quality people.

After my house we headed over to Blake's and hung out with the Trythall clan. I helped Jill make a puzzle and just chatted. Blake and I are very lucky to have both of our parents so close. It is always nice to go down and see them.

That was my weekend and I am going to take lots of pics for this weekend. Blake and I are going down to Cedar tonight and then hiking Angel's Landing tomorrow. We will then go to Mesquite to lay by the pool and just hang out. I am pretty excited...

The kids performing, they did great!

My grandma and grandpa

My mom and dad. We are all secretly pinching each other. We do love one another though.

Playing catch up

2009-03-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

I have not been very good lately at updating my blog. I have also not been very good lately taking pics of what's going on in my life. I need to do better at both. I just wanted to make a post to remind myself in later times of what has been going on lately.
I am actually not too stressed about life, usually when I am writing I feel very stressed because of everything that is going on and I have come to realize that if I am always stressing about what needs to be done, I am not paying attention to what is going on around me. I need to just relax and enjoy life as it is. My cohort is going to leave me on Tuesday and I am really going to miss having her. She has been such a great help in my class. I can't believe it is already April and we will start testing soon and then school will be over. Wow! It has gone by so fast! My family is doing well. My father has actually been to three weeks of church consecutively and has attended all three hours. He is very skeptical about things, but I am just happy he is trying.
Blake is stressing a little about school work and what he is going to be doing in the summer. He is enjoying work and doing great.
We went to Little Luke's blessing today and it was so much fun. Val, Kris, and Audrey came up from Las Vegas and that was fun to see them. We just hung out with family and ate. I must say I love Mormon gatherings. There was enough food to feed 100 people and there were only about 30 of us. Overall life is going well and we are just working hard to stay above water.

Burnin' Down the House!

2009-03-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

I had the funniest experience today and I just had to share it with everyone! Well in class we are learning about minerals and so we have had these chocolate chip pieces that represent different minerals. Today we were learning about igneous rocks and how the minerals melt to form a rock. Well to show this I thought I would show the children melting lava by putting the chocolate chips in a bowl and melting them in a microwave. We all headed to the faculty room kids buzzing with excitement. We put the stuff in the bowl and turned on the microwave. Just as I turned around and started explaining the process minerals go through in melting when my kids start screaming. I look behind me and smoke was pouring out of the microwave. This smoke was not your regular smoke though. It smelled like someone had put on their breaks, you know the burning rubber smell. I opened the door and the smoke rushed at us. My kids were choking. I took out the bowl and quickly transfered the minerals (chocolate chips) into another bowl. It turns out the bowl I used had a small rubber strip on the botto that started to melt. Sadly to say the minerals were tainted with the terrible smell and we couldn't even use them anymore. The really funny part was that we had a meeting after school in the faculty room and everyone had to sit in the burnt rubber smell for like an hour. I tell you teaching is never boring!

Farm Town

2009-03-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Maybe I am living a subconscious dream that I want to really be a farmer or something, but lately Blake and I have been addicted to Farm Town. Jessie Nielson introduced it to me on Facebook and jokingly I started a farm. Now secretly I am getting on the computer to "check" things, but really I am getting on to make sure my harvest is ok and it doesn't need to be harvested or sold. The sad thing is that earlier today Blake and I were going on a walk and I start telling Blake about my design plans for my farm. It is going to be great I want pine trees lining the outside boarder with my corn fields, apple trees and whatever else I feel like planting inside. I celebrated a big moment just barely when I reached the apprentice mark. I can't wait until I can unlock a barn and build a barn. Am I loser, I guess it is how you look at it. Sure I could be spending my time in a lot of other more productive ways, but maybe I am practicing for a future that my subconscious sees and I am totally blind to. Old Nik Donald has a farm e-i-e-i-o!
Other than Farm Town Blake and I are living our usual lives. He goes to school I go to teach and we meet back up sometime later at night. At times I wish we were both just going to school and having more of a free schedule. I am starting to crave summer and what it will bring.

?

2009-03-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

I didn't know what to title this update so I put exactly what I was thinking.

Blake just randomly splurted out, "I'm rubber and your glue everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." Now he is wondering what I am typing. He knows I am typing about him here he comes to check! That is a quality saying though, don't you agree? When you say that to someone they have no comeback. I was always annoyed when they would comeback with something like, "You are cool." Because then obviously that comeback bounced off me and now they were cool. It is a tricky comeback for sure. I didn't know what I was going to blog about in this update, but now thanks to Blake I was able to get started.

What is going on in my brain
Lately, I have been contemplating a lot about life and why we are all here. When I think of all of us and how we go around each day doing our own thing and sometimes I really get so consumed with what I have on my plate I forget to pay attention to what others might be going through. It reminds me of one of my favorite books in this book it says, "Everyone has their own agenda." Which is so true. I am really happy that we have this blogging thing to remind us of what others are going through and to share successes and maybe even failures with each other. It is really neat we have this opportunity to do this.

What is going on in our life
Blake and I are just truckin' on through life. I am helping with the choir, in my school, in choreographing dances. It has been so much fun! It reminded me of how much I loved dancing and the joy it brings. It is so fun to watch the kids and them trying to get the dances. I have choreographed Were all in this Together and Green Eggs and Ham. Next I need to come up with a dance for a Disney Medley. Other than that school is the same as always. I am getting a cohort, which is kind of like a student teacher, I am a little bit nervous about this because she is going to be observing my teaching and I am not perfect by any means. I am afraid she is just going to sit in the back and think, "Wow, she is a teacher." I will have her in my class for a month. Blake is doing well. He is trying to find a volunteer job because in one of his classes he needs to have twenty hours of volunteer work, so if any of you know of anyplace that needs volunteers let us now. Blake is a little picky on where he goes to volunteer. All in all, I am just excited that spring is coming. This means barbaques, swimming, and summer vacation!

Happy Valentines!

2009-02-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

Blake sent me this and I thought it was pretty funny. I hope you all have a happy Valentine's Day!

Future Einstein....

2009-02-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

I read once that Einstein was so smart that he was really dumb when it came to common knowledge things. For instance, his hygiene suffered because he would just forget to take care of himself. He was so enraptured in what he was doing he found it hard to do the simple tasks that we do each day. Well I think I am slowly becoming a future Einstein. No, I am not forgetting to shower or anything, yet, but I can see my downfall coming. I have two big examples. I have twice, not once but twice, locked my keys in my car while the car is still running. Yep, I get out and while I am getting out hit my lock on the door and lock it. I don't have keyless entry. One time I actually walked all the way into the library and started looking for my USB, that was on my keys. I also couldn't find my keys. I decided to go out and check my car to see if they fell somewhere and don't you worry once I got to my car I could hear it running and there were my keys still in the ignition and I was locked out. Luckily I had a great roommate, Mandi, who always was prepared with my spare keys. My next example just happened last night. I haven't been feeling well the past couple of days and so all day yesterday I just wore sweats. Blake came home and we decided we needed to get out for a little while. I needed to run to Wal-Mart and then we were going to go up to Jim's and hang out with them for a little while. I pulled on some pants and we left. After a fun night of shopping at Wal-Mart and being with Jim and Lisa for awhile we arrived home. I went to get into my pajamas and found that my pants were unbuttoned and unzipped already. No I had not unzipped them and no I had not unbuttoned them! I had not gone to the bathroom that night or anything. Yep, you guessed it from the time I pulled my pants on before we left I never buttoned or zipped my pants. I walked around all night with my pants unbuttoned and unzipped. I am so thankful for my ghetto booty that kept my pants from falling down. I am also thankful that I wore a longer shirt that covered that area so I don't think, hopefully, anyone noticed.

High School Tag

2009-02-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

High School Tag

1. Did you date someone in high school? Yeah, sometimes I wish I would have flown a little more solo. My best choice was to start dating Blake our Senior year.
2. What kind of car did you drive? My red Pontiac Grand Am that car rocked!
3. Did you pass your driver's license test the first time? Yes, blake likes to say he scored higher then i did. I will give him props for his excellent parking abilities (We drove together with Naylor)
4. Were you a party animal? It depends on what kind of party are we talking about, I always liked to have a good time and dance!
5. Were you considered a flirt? In our yearbook I was voted biggest flirt. Dexter would always say I even flirted with girls, I don't know it is just my personality I guss.
6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Nope
7. Were you a nerd? I would consider myself a nerd.
8. Were you on any varsity teams? Yes, Softball
9. Did you ever get suspended or expelled? Never
11. Who were your favorite teachers? I liked most of my teachers, I was probably closest to Lauri.
12. Where did you sit at lunch? With all of my friends
13. School mascot: Templar
14. School colors: Red, Black and White
15. Did you go to homecoming and who with? yes, I went with Scott Christiensen soph, Kyle Crouch Jr, and Austin Soper Sr.
16.If you could go back and do it again, would you? Yes, I loved High School, I would change some thing for sure though!
17. What do you remember most about graduation? Sitting at Kade's house with Meggan, Kade, Jody, and Blake just staring at the stars. Good times...
18. Where did you go on Senior Skip Day? Lagoon, I just copied that because I noticed Ash and Katie both said that. I don't even remember a skip day...
19. Were you in any clubs? Nick Peterson, Nolan Taylor, and I made the N3 club. It was pretty exclusive.
20. Have you gained weight since then? I have not gained weight but lost muscle for sure.
21. Who was your prom date? Rob Brandt soph, Blake jr and sr.
22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion?Yes, I loved our 5 yr. one
23. Did you have a job while in high school? Only in the summers I would do odd jobs.
24. Worst class? ?
25.Favorite Activity? I loved Drll and Softball
Anyone who would like to participate :)

Go Cardinals!

2009-02-01T12:06:00.001-08:00

Hello Hello,

I have been meaning to update my blog for over a week now and finally I promised myself I would sit down and do it. The Trythalls had a new arrival into their family. Jim and Lisa had their little boy ast Sunday at 6:18 in the morning. We were able to go up and see little Luke with Debbie and Bob. I must say with all these babies everywhere I can't get over the miracle of child birth. I mean this little egg becomes a child which eventually will become an adult and make more little eggs. How strange is that!! It is all just the divine plan of our wonderful Heavenly

Father. Here are some pics.... Doesn't he look cute holding a baby?

Not much more is going on in Blake and I's life right now. We are excited to watch the Super Bowl because a kid that Blake played with at Snow starts on the offensive line for the Cardinals. Other than that life is life.

2009-01-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

I thought I better get a new Valentines background. I tried to pick one that wasn't too over the top, with Valentines I don't know if that is possible.

Life in the Fast Lane

2009-01-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

When I think about my life sometimes this song comes into my head. Now I don't know every word to this song or anything, but I feel like the concept fits me. At times I look back at the past week and think, "What did I accomplish? What did I even do this past week? Have I even enjoyed this past week?" Of course I always enjoy my weeks and there are bright spots, I just at times get lost in the Things I Need To Do list and forget about the other stuff, at times the other stuff is a lot more important than the have to do things.
Not much has happened these past couple of weeks. Blake started a new semester and I started going back to work again. Blake is enjoying his classes, which is a big sigh of relief for me. I just want him to find something that he likes. I am working hard as always in my classroom. My kids are doing well. I really do love them all. I also somehow agreed to help choreograph dances for the choir. Now the last time I helped choreograph anything was in high school. I am afraid that this is going to be a joke. The instructor said they want show tunes type of dancing, I barely even know what show tunes are! Of course I say yes because I have a terrible disease of not saying no to anyone! For instance, A women in my ward came up to me today and told me I have beautiful eyes, no she is not picking up on me, she goes on to say that she would love to do my makeup and asked when would be best for her to come over. I try to say that I am super busy and really don't have a lot of time only on Thursdays. Well that was my big mistake, of course she says, "Oh Thursday works for me too!" Don't you worry she is coming over on Thursday to do my makeup :) How do I get myself in these predicaments? I guess it is just something I have to live with.
The only thing I can think about that was a highlight in Blake and I's past week was going to the Draper Open House. We went with Blake's brother, wife, her sister and husband. It was fun going with Jim and Lisa becaus Lisa is about read to pop. We just kept hoping she would go into labor at the temple, wouldn't that be an awesome story? Back to the temple, Oh my goodness, can we say, "Beautiful!" I just felt like that temple was a haven. It hasn't even been dedicated yet, but I just was in awe with it. This is the first open house I have ever been to, and I loved it! I am so grateful for temples on this earth and for my opportunity to partake of the blessings and beauty that they supply.

2009 brings excitement

2009-01-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve was fun we went to Jody and Tyler's. I always enjoy getting together with friends and just chatting. We really don't do much maybe play some games, but just hanging out and chatting is one of my favorite things to do. Blake was really pumped to watch the truck to the back flip. Sadly though the truck ended up not being able to land it...
The next day I went to get myself a coat for a late Christmas gift. I had told Blake I wanted a knee length coat and decided I would wait until after Christmas for the sales to get it. I found the perfect one at Dillards, we were given a gift card for our wedding at Dillards and I am sure it was to buy something for our apt. but I decided to use it for a coat. :) Anyway, the coat was on a sweet sale so I bought it plus two pairs of shoes that I didn't really need, but when there is a sale like that I have a hard time overlooking.
Friday we went four wheeling in Wanship. Now I had no idea there was a town named Wanship in Utah, but oh there is. It is barely past Park City. Wanship is part of North Summit I learned. Why did we go up there you might be asking? Well one of Blake's favorite mission buddies lives up there. His family owns a bunch of land so he invited us to go four wheeling on it. Wow! What beautiful country they have. I was so mad I forgot my camera in the truck, but it is gorgeous up there. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. After we went to lunch in Park City at the Loco Lizard. I love Park City if I could just walk around in the little shops all day I would be happy. Too bad we couldn't that day because we had to get back to watch the Ute game. What a game that was! Go Utes!! I think that was one of my favorite games I have watched in awhile. I watch a lot of football believe me... I loved how Utah just came out and surprised Alabama the way they did it was amazing.
Saturday little Trever was baptized. He is so adorable. I have known Trever as some of you have since he was just tiny. I remember him always doing the Three Amigos dance. He was so excited to be baptized, I swear that kid is going to be prophet someday or something, he is a neat kid. We hung out with Blake's fam for awhile and then headed home.
Tomorrow I go back to teaching I am ready, but it has been a wonderful break. I am already looking for Martin Luther King Jr. day. :)

My Final Post for 2008

2008-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post some of my favorite things that have gone on during the year. I must say 2008 has topped all the years so far. When I look back on 2008 I feel so blessed. This year I can only think of great things that have happened. Maybe I have blocked out the bad...
Anyway, I thought I would list some highlights from 2008 so that I can remember them.
January: Blake finally proposed on the last day of January! I think this might have been my second favorite day of the whole year. He surprised me at my work I was leaving, of course late, and he had put a scrapbook, that his mother and him had made, on my front seat. It is such a special book and I get teared up when I think about it. He snuck around my car and knelt down and asked me to marry him. I have never seen him so nervous! It was fantastic. :)
February: For Valentines day Blake made me a lovely dinner and got me one of the most sappy love stories every, "The Notebook" we watched it that night.
March: Hmmm, might have been a boring month....
April: Jim and Lisa, Blake's brother, were married. It was fun to be with them on this day and it made me even more excited for my wedding. Blake and I also got our engagements taken this month. We went out to Utah Lake and just played while the photographer took pictures of us. We thought we were so clever to buy Chuck Taylors before the pics and both wear them, they even ended up on our invites.
May: Jody and Tyler were married. This was a lot of fun to see. I was so happy for one of my best friends to find someone so perfect for them. I also went through the temple in the end of May. Wow! What a wonderful experience, words cannot even begin to explain that happiness that brought me. I also finished my first year of teaching in May, I cannot believe I survived!
June: The big day! Blake and I were married on June 07. I would say it was a beautiful day, but it definitely wasn't, rain all day! I swear that was the only day in the summer that rained... It was still a magical day. When I look back to high school when Blake and I started to date I would have never guessed that in five years later I would be getting married to him. We also took our honeymoon to beautiful San Diego. I dream of the beaches at La Jolla still.
July: Rodeos, rodeos, rodeos. :) Being with family and playing with friends.
August: Starting my second year of teaching, still nervous but so much easier than starting my first. Blake starts school after almost a three year break.
September: Dexter's year mark. Staci and Jared get married. Yay! for another great wedding.
October: Mandi and Chad the final marriage of my great friends this year. I must say this year was a year of weddings. What a beautiful wedding they had. I also love Halloween and dressing up. Blake and I dressed up as Pebbles and Bam Bam it was fantastic. Watched baseball play-0ffs until the Dodgers lost.
November: Blake and I had our big 24 birthdays this year. We might be 24 but I still feel like we are maybe 20. Spending Thanksgiving with Blake's family. It was new for me to not be with my own family, but it was so nice to be with them and still feel like I was with family. We played games, games, and more games it was great!
December: Spending quality time with Blake while on vacation from school. I love just laying in bed and talking with him at night and in the morning. Not feeling the rush of having to go anywhere. Why can't life always be like this? Our first wonderful Christmas where Blake's dreams came true...
Those are the highlights of the year. I am sure there are things that I missed but I just wanted to be able to remind myself of all the wonderful things that have happened this year. The most important thing that I want to remind myself and anyone who reads this is to cherish the memories and live for the moment, do not always think of the future and how things will get better, enjoy today and what it brings.

Merry Christmas Batman!

2008-12-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas has been fantastic! I must say that this was a very memorable Christmas. It was a Christmas of firsts. First Christmas being married to my very best friend. First Christmas without my family. First Christmas dinner that I made. There are many more but these are the most important. One funny story to share:

My mother is a peach. She always is striving to get us the best presents and the most unique. One Christmas Dexter said he needed a sweater, that morning Dexter opened 8 sweaters. (We counted) She just gets something stuck in her head and it doesn't go away.

My mother asked me what movie Blake would like and of course he wanted "The Dark Knight". It is also another tradition in my family to get pajamas on Christmas Eve. Well my mother thinking that Blake must be obsessed with Batman went and bought Blake Batman pajamas.

We were opening our pajamas and Blake just shook his head and went into the other room. He came out in those wonderful Batman pajamas and I could not stop laughing! He looked like an overgrown 12 year old. To top things off the shirt says, "Keep staring I might do a trick." I laughed until I cried. We slept by the Christmas tree that night and woke up in the morning and opened presents. After that we headed down to Manti and ate my father's fabulous breakfast that he makes every Christmas and talked to Dexter. Dexter is doing great. He sounds like himself again. There for awhile I was really beginning to wonder... We went over to the Trythall's after and played games. The next morning I received a surprising text that said Meggan had her baby on Christmas Eve! I couldn't believe it. We went over to the hospital that night. It was so weird and funny! Dejanae (I don't know if I spelled that correctly) is adorable. She is so tiny and has lots of dark black hair. I think she looks a lot like Meg when she was a baby. Dejanae spit up a little and it was so funny to watch Meg and Kade freak out about it. There were wondering if she got it all up and started sucking everything out with the little suck tool thing. I can only imagine how nervous they are. I was nervous just holding her. Everytime she closed her eyes and I couldn't hear her breath I would stare at her to make sure she was still alive. It was a lot of fun to see this new miracle in their lives. I am so happy for both Meggan and Kade they are going to be the best parents.

Of course Meg looks great after having a baby!

Our last month

2008-12-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since I last posted! I think time just goes by too quickly sometimes. I feel like this Christmas season has came too fast. I love this time. I am always reminded of the great family and friends that I have and how blessed I am to be in the situation that I am in. I thought for this post I would just share some of our pics from the last month...

This Pic is taken the day after Thanksgiving. The Trythall's have a tradition of having a White Elephant party on Thanksgiving Day. We were lucky enough to get the box full of sunglasses from Tom and Jill. It was great! Blake got the idea to poke the lenses out. We are stylin'

We went up Ephraim Canyon to get Christmas trees. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't gone and chopped down a tree for quite awhile. It was Blake's first time ever!

Did you know we were expecting? Blake is the next man to have a baby!

We made little snowmen for our Christmas tree. We definitely got a lot better as we went on. The first couple were a little scary. I was so excited that a Christmas Tree actually even fit in our apartment. At first I thought we might just need to get a mini one.

To Sum Things Up...

2008-11-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

I am sitting home alone this evening. Blake got a job so he is working right now. I am so happy he was able to finally find a job that he wanted. It has been a long struggle trying to find something. We were doing ok, but it is always nice to have a little extra financial security, if that is even possible. He is working at a school for At Risk kids. He will be teaching kids how to ride horses. Can we say, "Dream job for Blake!" He is really pumped about it. He will only be working Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Saturday afternoons. He started training on Monday and until next Wed. For the next couple of nights he will be working until 11. This means we will seriously not see each other at all, I am a little bumbed about this. I wanted him to get a job and now I am missing him a lot! He was like Mr. Mom or something. He would always have the house cleaned when I got home and was cooking something. Now I come home to emptiness. I know I am sounding silly because lots of families have to go through this, it is just hard to begin with. One bright thing is that I am able to watch other shows besides ESPN and football. Although, this afternoon I found myself watching BYU and Utah by myself. Go Utah!!! Anyway, that is life how I know it right now. I am excited for Thanksgiving and the break from school, I will not lie, I am very ready for it... Looking at everyone else's blog it looks like we are all just plugging along with life. I am so grateful for you all and I hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving! As Dexter would say, "We are blessed."

Speaking of Dexter here are some pics that he just sent to me. I don't know what it is with him and sticking things on his face, but here is what I like to call, "Attack of the BLOB"
p.s. I know both the pics are the same, for some reason it would not let me delete the smaller one...

Gotta love him!

Fabulous Fall

2008-11-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

I thought I should start back at Halloween to update you fully. We dressed as Pebbles and Bam-Bam for Halloween. It was so much fun we got to dress up three different times. A girl and I in the ward had a party the Friday before Halloween. We played games and had a donut eating contest. Then I dressed up for school. I love Halloween at an Elementary school. Kids are so excited and it is so much fun to get into the spirit of Halloween. The last time we dressed up was to go to our ward party. I love dressing up and look forward to any chance I get to put a costume on. Blake doesn't look forward to it so much. Funny thing though, we did get our stuff from D.I. and Blake's shirt is actually a womens blouse! He resisted but you can see I won. ;)

The next big event in the Fabulous Fall line-up was my birthday on Wed. Blake did such a wonderful job on making it special. He made me my own cake with the letter N on it. It was a delicous cake also. He decorated our apartment. When I cam home from school he was hiding and surprised me. At school my kids brought gift. I love the homemade cards. I had a couple of kids give me homemade jams and canned peaches, which is fantastic! I think that being a teacher and having a birthday is the best day to spend with kids. They treat you great and they want to just make your day the best. Anyway, back to the evening. We went to Olive Garden and had a great meal and then I opened presents and ate some cake. Blake gave me the cutest shoes. He is such an awesome shopper!! I love you Blake and thanks again...

Real Mountain Man

Bar J Wranglers

I believe the highlight of my weekend was going to the Bar J Wranglers on Saturday. It is Blake's birthday this Wed. so I really wanted to do something special. He has always talked about the Bar J Wranglers and I have had no idea what he was talking about. Well, one day a couple of weeks ago I heard on the radio that they were coming to Heber City for the Cowboy Poetry week. I knew this was my chance. I ordered the tickets and decided that I woud surprise Blake. We woke up early on Sat. and I informed Blake that he needed to wear his cowboy boots, he always gets excited when he has and excuse to wear them. We headed up to Heber and Blake kept asking me if I was going to emberass him or anything, no trust I tell you... We get up there and the first thing we see is this mountain man sitting by his fire and I know that Blake was really questioning me. We went in and picked up the tickets and still Blake was clueless. He was enjoying all of the handlebar mustaches and big old beards, but he still didn't know. Finally, a man came out and yelled, "If you are going to the Bar J Wranglers follow me." That gave away the clue. Blake's eyes lit-up. We went in and it was a blast! I didn't know what to expect but I loved it. They had cowboy poets and other people open up for them. Then they come out and preformed for an hour and a half. They tell jokes and sing. It is just a really fun atmosphere. Afterwards, we walked around I bought a coon hat and horn buttons to show my fourth graders. We went and ate at our favorite little place up there called Keen Dairy and then came home. It was a very fun day.

Tagged and I decided to play along

2008-10-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

8 T.V. Shows I love to watch:
Biggest loser: it just inspires me, I still don't do anything physical though...
The Office: Yay! for Michael and Holly hooking up. :)
Untamed and Uncut: Pretty intense
Football: I love my Bears!
Blake would be angry if I didn't put baseball...
Channal Two News: I am a devoted fan
So You Think You Can Dance in the summers
I know it is only 7....

8 Favorite Restaurants (no particular order)
Cafe Rio
Callie's Cafe
Olive Garden
Mimi's Cafe
Wendy's :)
Ewe Cafe in Ephraim
Fat Jack's in Ephraim
Texas Roadhouse

8 Things that happened Today:
Blake and I prepared our lesson for Sunday School- Money Management something we need...
Cleaned the apartment
Went Grocery shopping
Bought pumpkin cookies, my favorite
Took a tiny nap
Graded papers
Watched BYU play UNLV and Texas play Oklahoma
Washed rugs

8 Things I am Looking Forward to
Mine and Blake's birthdays
Thanksgiving
Holiday season
Hot chocolate
Every weekend
Moving out of this place, not anytime soon
Getting a new truck, Blake's input in like ten years. :) my input

8 Things on my wish list
Place of our own
having time to exercise
Having a child
Getting a new truck, Blake's input
a new gun, Blake's input
Going on a Carribean Cruise
Going to Italy or Ireland maybe both
Living Happily Ever After with my cute hubby

Life Lately

2008-10-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Vs.

I was reminded by Mindy that it has been awhile since I have last updated, and it has. There are no excuses, I have just been lazy. Mostly my days are work, eat, relax, sleep. Not much going on. Last weekend I did go to one of my good friend's (Mandi Dyreng) wedding. It was in Manti and it was so much fun. The last wedding that I went to there was mine. It was a lot of fun to go back into the sealing room and to fill the same spirit that was there for ours. I always thought that the most romantic place to have a wedding would be on the beach or somewhere exotic, but really I think it is the temple. It is such a fantastic place. Not saying that those others aren't nice, but there is just such a peaceful feeling there. It was a very cold day and so waiting outside was not so peaceful. The reception was so cute I wish I would have taken pictures. They had green apples and brown decorations. It was adorable! I was thinking about it and lately it seems like I have been going to so many weddings and bridal showers. It has definitely seemed like the time to get married. Now I know that it is going to move from bridal showers to baby showers. I went to Meg's shower yesterday. It is so much fun to see her and her sister Mandy both pregnant! She got a lot of cute things. I must say I prefer bridal showers just because you can throw naughty little things in there. For a baby shower people would look at you weird if you threw something naughty in there. The highlight of my week was definitely going to Thriller. This is my fourth year going and I love it just the same as I did my first year. This little boy was there who is probably eleven and he can break dance so well. He also choreographs some of the dances that was really fun. I love seeing young talent like that. I went with my mom, Debbie, and Lisa. We had a great time even though Lisa's baby (in her stomach) kept jumping because of the noise. If you have an opportunity to go I would definitely say take it! The last thing is Blake and I are trying to decide what to be for Halloween. We are thinking Woody and his little girlfriend off of Toy Story? I don't know does anyone have any ideas?

Happy Fall!!

2008-10-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

I was on someone's blog the other day and they had a Halloween background and so I decided that my background needed to be changed. I thought this one was cute.

So much has been going on so I better start from a week ago when we went to Les Mis. It was fantastic! I heard everyone saying that I needed to see it, but I really didn't know much about it. I went with Blake's mom and my sister inlaws. That is Val (Blake's sister) next to me, Debbie, Lisa (Jim's wife), and Jill (Tom's wife). We went to St. George on Saturday and shopped. Val and Jill has little girls and Lisa is expecting a little boy so there was a lot of shopping for kids, and I am not going to lie looking at the cute little outfits made me kind of want a little kid to dress up. Don't worry I am over that now, but for a minute....

We went to Tuachan and the weather was lovely and the play was magnificent. We all loved it so much. We stayed the night and the next morning headed home. It was a great weekend last week.

On Wed. we had to celebrate the Dodgers run at the World Series. This is the first time they have won a post season series since 1988 when they won the World Series. This is a big deal in our lives right now. I say our because we only have one tv, therefore it is a big deal for us. No, I enjoy watching baseball. I mostly fall asleep before the game is over and then Blake fills me in on everything that I missed. I have developed quite a liking to Manny Ramirez. We are now looking forward to Thursday for the next round against the Phillies, Go Dodgers!

This weekend has been a fabulous weekend. I have not done one productive thing! I guess I did go grocery shopping on Saturday, but other than that nothing. It has been so long since we have had a weekend to ourselves. We were even able to watch all four sessions of conference. I really enjoyed this conference. I realized that lately I have been getting down and stressing about the whole economy thing. I was seriously starting to wonder if in a couple months we were going to have to be lining up for soup lines. After this conference I really feel that things are going to be fine. I think the most important thing that we can do as church members is to really unify and come together. I think it is time to make changes and help each other grow. After every conference I feel renewed and reminded of what is important. After President Monson talked this morning I am really feeling like the main thing that I can do is to cherish everyday that I have and to make the most of it. I will admit that I get very caught up in work and I could spend hours trying to get everything done, but I have decided that my first priority is not work it is my husband and enjoying this time that we have together. I am not going to spend late nights anyomre on my work. I will give it all I can, but reasonably. I am very excited for everything that is happening in our lives right now and I am excited to live every moment with my wonderful husband that I can.

Updates

2008-09-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Blake and I went to a wedding and a reception. The wedding was my friend Stacy's and the reception was my cousin's. It was a wonderful ceremony and I was so happy to be able to attend. Stacy looked gorgeous as you can see. The next one to get married is going to be Mandi! It is so much fun to have all my friends getting married. I am so excited to watch all of our lives grow and where we end up. My cousin's reception was a lot of fun and I am very happy for her also.

I haven't written in this for so long. Life is crazy busy right now. This is a picture of Blake after we went to feed the ducks. We like to walk down to this pond by BYU and feed the ducks. We want to catch one, but we are still figuring out how we can pull this off. Blake as you can see got creative with the bread bag and started walking home like this. I love this boy!! I am mostly just working right now. I wonder if teaching will ever become easy or if I will always have to stay late.... Blake is going to school still looking for a job. We are doing well though and are very blessed to have each other.

Weekly Post

2008-09-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

Life with the Trythalls is going well. I am keeping very busy with school and Blake just started last week. He was very nervous, but he made it through his first days! I am very proud of him for going back, I know he has been nervous because it has been over three years since his last time in a class. Right now he is just looking for a part time job so if anyone knows of anything in the Provo area let us know!
I am having an interesting time with my new class. One of the kids in my class had a seizure on Thursday. FREAKED ME OUT! I was so scared, but it only lasted a couple of seconds so it was ok. Turns out it happens once and awhile to them. Hopefully no longer in my class. My bee sting is good. My arm hurts once and awhile still and I am now completely terrified of bees, its good.
Our Labor Day weekend was really fun. We went to a party in our apt. complex that our neighbor put on. We decided we needed to get to know some people up here. It was a lot of fun, we played boxers and briefs (fabulous game). On Sat. we headed down to E-town and hung out with our families. We did the hokey pokey on Sat. with the Trythall's (The real Hokey Pokey get your minds out of the gutters). On Sun. we hung out with my fam and played hearts. Overall it was a great weekend and I guess I am ready to start a new week...

Bee Sting!

2008-08-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Mischievious little things!!!!

Well my first week of school is officially over with. It went well. It is fun to start again and to see how excited the kids are. I definitely have some talkers in my class, but it is all good.

The highlight I have to say is.... My Bee sting. Yesterday I was stung while I was out doing bus duty. I was standing there minding my own when all of a sudden I felt a sting and off flew a bee/wasp I am not sure which. The sting was on my wrist. It started to swell and so I put mud on it. I figured it would hurt for a little bit and go away. A couple of hours went by and it was swelling up more and becoming more irritable. I called my mother and she told me I needed to take care of it as soon as possible. Well I didn't quite listen to her and just thought it would go away. It really became painful and so at about 9:00 Blake and I went and got some Benadryl. Sadly to say it did nothing. All night I could feel my arm and the swelling was getting worse. I woke up and even to put my arm down was painful. I called my mother and old her and she talked to some people at the pharmacy and found out that if the swelling is getting bigger and traveling down my arm (which it was) it is very dangerous. I talked to some people at the school and my wonderful faculty and principal offered to take my class so I could go to the doctor. Also my wonderufl husband searched around for a doctor and made the appointment. It is sno nice to have a support group around you.

I went to the doctor and he looked at it and said, "Wow, that is impressive." I thought, "Yeah, I know." He gave me some perscriptions and now I am just waiting for the swelling to go down. The pain has subsided though which is good. Just a warning STAY AWAY FROM THE BEES!

This picture doesn't really give the swelling much justice, but here is a sample of what my arm looked like.

The Beginning of the End

2008-08-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

It sounds depressing, but it is... Not really. It was my first day back to school full time today and I must say it was a little bit depressing. First of all Blake and I have been so spoiled the past two weeks because he quit his job so we just have been hanging out together. It has been so nice, the whole summer Blake was gone by 5:30 in the morning and then not home till 6 or 7. It is so nice just to be together. This summer went so quickly and it was so much fun but I feel like so much was left unfinished. Life is just flying!
This summer really has been the best summer of my life and I am so grateful for all the wonderful experiences we have had, even getting our window shot out was an experience! I just wanted to say good-bye to summer and hello school year. Lets just hope I survive.

Some of My Favorite and Not so Favorite things

2008-08-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering the things that Blake and I have been doing and getting lately and I just thought I would share some of my favorite and not so favorite things are.

My Favorite things

-I just ordered Core Rhythms off the internet. Yes it appealed to me when I saw Mary Murphy pushing the product. I really do enjoy it a lot. It is fun to do and I sweat, but I don't feel overlly exhausted. I will let you know if I see any results...

-Blake and I had to drop his red truck off in Ephraim because the windshield had a crack in it and it needed to get registered. So we picked up the old white truck. I love the white truck, Blake and I dated in that truck. I know it is so lame, but I love being able to scoot over and sit next to him, so lame.

-So You Think You Can Dance finale. I think that this finale was my favorite one ever! I loved seeing all my old favorites from years before. It was so much fun! I am happy Joshua won, I still believe Katee deserved it, but Josh had a great personality. I loved his dimples.

-Of course I need to add my wonderful friends and family! I love all of you guys, especially my husband :)

My not so Favorite things

-punk kids who shoot out windows. So like I said we brought up Blake's truck only to have the window shot with a pellet or bb gun the next day. Yep we now have to take that truck down to get the windshield fixed.

-When it is cloudy, but it doesn't rain. I love the rain and when I see clouds I get so excited... I was very let down this week.

-Little brown bugs in my bed. So there have been these little brown bugs in our apt. and we had the manager spray and Blake sprayed. We hadn't seen any for a little while. Well one night I was reading and Blake was asleep. I started to smell something (I forgot to say that the brown bugs stink, I don't know why) I thought, "Hmmm that smells like those brown bugs."

I look down and there is a little brown bug right by my face! I freaked out and couldn't sleep in the bed the rest of the night.

I could go on with both of these for awhile, but I was just thinking about these things and thought I would inform you all of these things.

Nothing Like a long trip

2008-08-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

Pretty much my whole weekend, reading Breaking Dawn.

On Friday Blake and I went to Vegas after he was finished with work. We needed to celebrate his last day of work. As you know Vegas is a long drive from Provo and so we began to chat. Since it was such a long time I really got to see a part of Blake that I haven't seen too much. It was a lot of fun! It is fun when you can let down your gaurd down and just play.

We arrived in Vegas at about 10 Vegas time. Blake's sister Val was all psyched to go out to this Twilight Prom thing at Barnes & Noble so we took off down there. Val and I were pretty much like every twelve year old girl, no just playin' but we were like running in to see everything. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't able to get any pics of the Twilight Prom because there really wasn't much to take a picture of except all the teenagers in their prom attire. Yeah we were a little old to be there. So, we headed to Wal-Mart because that is the best price we found. We made friends with a woman in line a head of us and waited for an hour for them to bring out the book. We were third and fourth to get the book. We started reading right when we got home.

Saturday we just chilled. We adored over Audrey. She is such a happy little girl. I think Blake had the most fun playing with her. He loves kids and especially there toys. I think I am just going to buy some toys for Blake to enjoy himself. We rode up to Red Rock Canyon and I am sad to say I didn't see much of it. I read until I got car sick and could no longer read. Blake went and golfed while Val and I stayed home and read. That night Chris BBQ for us and everything was sooo good. That night Blake and I went to the strip and walked around. Now not to put down the strip, but honestly I don't like it at all. I just don't see what is so great about it. Blake on the other hand loves it. He loves looking at all the people. i agree there are some special people to see, but I hate the crowd and the feeling that I just don't belong. I feel like either I am overly dressed or white trash compared to most the people down there. That is just my opinion on it all.

Blake's first time playing guitar hero. He did respectively well.

Sunday we went to church with Val and Chris and then took off for Cedar. In Cedar we stayed at my grandma and grandpa's over night. They took us to dinner at Milts in Cedar. It is one of my favorite steak houses. It was delicious. We hung out the rest of the night with them. They are so funny. I love them so much... I lived with them for two summers down at Cedar and I really feel like they are my second parents. I always look forward to seeing them.

On Monday we took off for Ephraim after a delicious breakfast from my grandma. We stopped and had to switch the red truck for the white truck. The red truck needed its window fixed. Blake is so happy to be in his white truck again. He loves his "manly" truck. We are back home and happy to be back.

Breaking Dawn

2008-08-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

Yes I am devoting a whole post to this book. Don't worry I won't ruing anything for those who have not finished it, but for those who have I want to hear what you thought about the book! I personally was a little annoyed by it at times, but in the end I am satisfied with things. I will not say anymore just let me know what your thoughts were! I am just thankful I can go back to normal life now instead of always reading, I know Blake is happy about that also, he has felt neglected lately.

Dexter Update

2008-07-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

Some of you have been asking how Dexter is doing. He is doing really well, he has baptized some people and is really feeling the spirit. I just wanted to share this picture with you all, it really disturbed me and I hope it does the same for you...

My Only Question is Why?

Reception Pics

2008-07-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

I had some people ask for pictures of our reception so here are some. My mom and another lady (Connie Cox) are the ones that really decorated, they did an awesome job!

This is Blake's Groom's cake. We found the little guy at Fanzz. Go Dodgers!

That was what the whole decoration around the cake looked like. I liked the cake a lot even though we really didn't eat any, my mother says it was good.

This was the table arrangement. On each bouquet there was a different saying, this one says "forever"

This was our little collection of things through the years. One of my closest friends, Mandi Dyreng made the quilt for me. It has little sayings on it.

These were cups with M&M's that had our names and then others said the date we got married. Pretty cool huh.

This is what it looked like when you first walked in the door we put the presents behind in that little closet thing.
This was one of the better shots of the backdrop it was really pretty with rod iron and stuff. We got if from a lady in Gunnison and she said our reception was garden chic, so I guess that is what you could call it.

All-in-all it just made Blake really tired!

The Dark Knight

2008-07-26T11:29:00.001-07:00

We went and saw the Dark Knight finally last night. After hearing it was so good we decided we needed to go see it. We got tickets at 8:00 for the 10:00 showing because all the other ones were sold out. We had to still wait in line for an hour to get into the theater. It was pretty crazy. We figured out that most of the people that were waitingin line next to us had already seen the show. During the movie I was a little disturbed at some parts, but I liked it. Blake absolutely loved it. I think we have very different tastes in movies. I don't know what it is lately but every movie I watch if there is anything sad in it I cry. I have never been like this before. I cried last night in Batman. Anyway I just thought I would throw my review out there for the world to see. Also the other thing that I am really pumped about is the new Twilight book coming out "Breaking Dawn". Hopefully I will be satisfied with the way it ends.

24th of July

2008-07-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

Our day was pretty laid back. We slept in which I always love doing. My parents called and told us they were coming up. They took us out to our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Springville, La Casita. It is delicious! After we went to the mall to get my dad some jeans. Afterwards Blake and I came home and pretty much just crashed for the afternoon.
That night we went with Jim and Lisa to the Bees game. I wasn't thinking and wore jeans and a hot t-shirt and I was dying! It was sooooo hot. We sat on the grass by left field and died till about the sixth inning when the sun finally went under the stadium. The game was pretty uneventful the most entertained I was was when the little kids in front of us started sword fighting with some blow up things we got for free.
After the game there are fireworks and you can go out on the field and lay. Well why I was walking to go down there guess who I saw, well you will never guess, Bill Gephardt!!! You might not think that is very cool, but I was rather pumped. I was embarrassed to ask for a picture so Jim boldly went over and asked him if I could get my picture with him, pretty embarrassing, but he did. What a nice guy.
The fireworks were also amazing it was so much fun. I think the best part of those were when the drunk guy behind us kept on yelling, "Thank goodness for Mormons." I must say I agree with him. :)

My Friend Bill and I

Our Wedding Day!

2008-07-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We finally got our pictures back and I thought I would share some of them with you...